


Summer Girl

by efk_girldetective



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Drama, F/M, Fluff and Humor, Friends With Benefits, Friendship, Romance, Sex
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-26
Updated: 2020-09-14
Packaged: 2021-03-06 06:47:35
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 12
Words: 41,260
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25519024
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/efk_girldetective/pseuds/efk_girldetective
Summary: The last thing Lily Evans expects the summer before her seventh year is the infamous Potter family moving in down the street.But in the gold light of summer, James and Lily find themselves unexpected friends--and then, unexpectedly, more than friends.
Relationships: James Potter/Lily Evans Potter
Comments: 84
Kudos: 135





	1. Chapter 1

_Lily_

It’s supposed to be a relaxing summer.

And it is, for a week or so. It’s like breathing for the first time in months.

My sixth year at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry almost proved to be my death: courtesy, mainly, of ruthless N.E.W.T level coursework. And if suffering the constant stress of studying, homework, and exams wasn’t enough for a verdict of attempted murder, then consider unrelenting Prefect duties, tutoring first through sixth years alike at the bequest of the esteemed Professor McGonagall, and serving as Slughorn’s brewing junior in any spare hours I had—and to sweeten the sentence of death, any glory there might have been in managing to remain at the top of my class despite a frenetic schedule was lost in the exhaustion, anxiety, and lack of social life that resulted.

And this is all not to mention the matter of Owen Flannigan: Golden-haired Hufflepuff, fellow Prefect, first long-term boyfriend, taker of virginity—asshole of the highest degree.

But it’s all over. Done. Exams taken, courses aced, potions brewed, boyfriend sacked. Now: Summer. Two blissful months of reading, iced tea, and bike rides.

The first week goes exactly as expected.

I exchange letters with Marlene and Dorcas asking after their families, arranging our monthly visits in London, trying to convince them, as always—and to no avail—to get themselves a Muggle telephone. _I will be doing no such fucking thing,_ Marlene wrote. _You won’t make_ _a muggle out of me, Lily Evans._

It’s the first Friday in June when the promise of relaxation crumbles before my eyes. It’s midafternoon and I’m minding my own business, harming nothing and no one. I’m spread out on a blanket in the garden, doing some light reading— _War and Peace_ —keeping Mum company while she gardens. She wears her signature gardening hat, ostentations, floppy, and straw. From Mum I got my no-holds-barred determination to accomplish a task no matter what the cost—and to accomplish it to the very best of my ability, to boot. Her garden is a shining example of such perseverance. Whatever pest or water shortage or pesky weeds tries to slow its growth, Mum is there, fighting back, floppy-hatted. I admire this follow-through immensely—and am every-day grateful to have inherited her fighting spirit. 

From her I also inherited red hair, and, in turn, skin that burns almost the second I step into the sun. Which reminds me—I lay down Tolstoy and reach for my tube of sunscreen.

“I met the loveliest new neighbors the other day,” Mum muses from behind a cache of tomato plants. “Moved into that gorgeous brick vacancy—really was the sweetest woman—Eugenia, think. Oh, no— _Euphemia_ I think it was, yes, yes, Euphemia— strange name, don’t you think? Of course you know that’s not a judgment, sweet, given that cousin I’ve got, what’s his name again?”

“Weymouth,” I supply.

“Oh yes, Weymouth, always was a bit of a kook, too, he was never quite right in the head.” Mum sits up from behind the tomato plants, shaking out the dirt from her gardening gloves. “I think you’d really like her, sweet, she had a way about her that was so pleasing. And her son popped in while we were chatting and Lily pad,” Mum flips up the brim of her hat to look at me, eyes sparkling. “Quite a looker, I'd say, seemed right around your age—think it would be fun to make a new friend for the summer?”

“Mum,” I scold, trying to concentrate on the task of spreading sunscreen evenly across my face. “I am not looking for a new friend _,_ thank you very much.”

"Well, he seemed the right opposite of your last venture, sweet," Mum tsks at me, fetching her shears from her basket of gardening tools and bits and going to work on the sunflowers. “Will you come with me, later, to drop off some sweet rolls?”

I tip my sunglasses down my nose, eyeing her suspiciously. “Only if you promise to be normal around this son, and not try anything.”

Mum holds her hands up in mock innocence. “I'll be on my best behavior.”

She will absolutely not be on her best behavior, I know.

But, unfortunately, I really have no other plans.

***

Our new neighbors moved into the biggest cottage on the street. Its got beautiful strands of ivy haloing the front entrance and a positive field of blush-colored roses in the front yard. Mum knocks—I’ve got my hands full with the sweet rolls in a basket. The woman who answers the door—Euphemia, I presume—is lovely in a swingy yellow sundress. “Ruth! Oh, you came by!”

“With sweet buns!” Mum exclaims, putting her arm around me. “And this is my daughter, Lily.”

“Bless your heart, Lily, hello, hello!” Euphemia gushes. There is something uncanny, familiar in her gold-brown eyes, her wavy brown hair, though I can’t place it.

Euphemia waves us inside, insistent. “You’re both dears—please, come in!”

The house feels cozy despite its large, open layout, furnished in warm colors and neutral tones, stocked well in bookshelves and leafy green houseplants spilling out of their containers. Euphemia shouts at us to make ourselves at home in the living room while walks further into the house, yelling back that she’ll be right out with tea. She adds from afar, “my boy should be home any time, I just know how he love to meet you, Lily!”

Mum gives me a meaningful look as she plops down a leather couch. I shake my head at her and mouth, _stop!_

While we wait on Euphemia, Mum tinkers with the embroidered couch pillows and I feast my eyes on the books lining the walls of the living room. I scan through Orwell, Dickens, Beckett, Austen, Hemingway, Freud—my beloved Tolstoy. Their _War and Peace_ looks old, very old, and I wonder if there ever might be an appropriate moment to ask about its origin and history—but—what’s this? I lean in, squinting, to read the worn blue spine of a book that practically smacks me in its familiarity: _A History of Magic_ by Bathilda Bagshot.

I hardly have time to contemplate this revelation before Euphemia scurries back into the room, sunny and bright, with a tray of tea. “There we are,” she beams, setting the tray down on the coffee table, then making quick work of handing Mum and I teacups and asking if we need sugar or cream. “Now Lily,” Euphemia asks, turning toward me as she stirs cream into her own tea. “What year in school are you, I’m dying to know if you and my James are similar in age.”

Something in the pit of my stomach turns over like I swallowed a rock.

The realization is slow, and painful. Gold-brown eyes— _History of Magic_ —her son, _James_.

“Um, I—”

As if summoned by fate itself, a voice interrupts me from down the hall—a voice I’d recognize anywhere.

“Mum! Home!”

He rolls into the room with an ease that is—for just a moment—endearing, as I’m sure he was only expecting to see his mum. But he lays eyes on first my mum, and then me, and then his eyes widen in recognition and then—James Potter smiles as though someone’s just told him he’s won a spot on Puddlemere United opening string, no tryout necessary.

“Well, well, well—what do we have here?”

Euphemia and Mum look back and forth between James and I, visibly confounded by his tone of voice. Euphemia is the first to ask. “Do you two—I daresay you know one another?”

“I daresay we do,” I say, setting my teacup onto its plate, the defeated click of glassware mirroring my own feelings.

There goes my well-earned summer of relaxation.

* * *

_James_

The move had been dad’s idea. “I need to get out of this Merlin forsaken city,” he told my Mum and I very matter-o-factly the night I returned home from sixth year. “I reckon we could all use some country charm this summer, eh? What do we think of northeast Essex?”

I knew the real reason for the move was dad’s increasing irritation with the Society for Potioneers, the Ministry’s subset for Potioneers of the highest regard, an institution that prized itself on accepting only wealthy pureblood witches and wizards that held Potions fame of the highest tier. They’d been pining after dad since his company had flown off the charts in profits recently—the Prophet had run a story about the positive effects Fleamont Potter’s infamous hair potion had on productivity in spellcasting, and the wizarding public had gone mad for the product, causing an unexpected resurgence in popularity.

Dad is barely involved in the business aspect anymore—he certainly has no interest in joining a society of hoity-toity Potioneer elite. He just wants a quiet place in the suburbs to experiment, play tennis, and read the newspaper.

I have no quarrel with the move to quiet Dedham, nor does Mum, who requested only a house with a pool. Of course—had I known the particulars of the location, I would have perhaps a bit more conflicted, knowing how moving onto the same street as Lily Evans would look to her.

She had not seemed particularly pleased to find me living a few doors down form her. I had great difficulty reading her exact feelings on the matter over the vivacious conversation of our mothers—they were shocked, delighted, and bombastic with the news of Lily and I being classmates—and magical classmates, at that! Mum wanted to know _everything_ about raising a Muggleborn witch. _Having your daughter do dishes by hand—when she could just use her wand. Imagine!_

I surmised from Lily’s abrupt exit that afternoon—“so sorry, forgot I’m meeting a friend for dinner, thanks so much for the tea, Mrs. Potter”—that she isn’t exactly pleased about the new neighbors. Well— _one_ of the new neighbors.

She is likely praying I will leave her alone.

Unfortunately for her peace and quiet, my mates are all tied up for the summer—much to my chagrin. Remus’ family is taking a month-long hiking excursion to Iceland, a jaunt Sirius happily tagged along on so he didn’t have to spend another second with his own awful family. Pete spends every summer on his awful Aunt Tabitha’s farm in Wales—which he despises as a whole but has yet to figure out a way to bow out of that doesn’t involve the wrath of his Aunt Tabitha.

So that leaves the lone Marauder—I, James Potter—friendless and bored.

Convincing Lily Evans to hang out with me could solve both of those problems, if done right.

***

Whatever elaborate ride-by-the-Evans-house-on-my-bike-several-times-a-day-until-Lily-happens-to-spot-me plan I devise to inspire a “chance” meeting with Lily is thrown out with the proverbial sink when I run straight into her on a chipper Sunday morning jaunt to the local café. We quite literally collide, her attempting an exit, I attempting an entrance.

My “oh, so sorry—” overlaps her “oh, gods, I’m—” until we look into each other’s faces and I can’t help but smile and she gives me back a look that is possibly fury, possibly muteless joy.

Of course—I would be knackered to believe it anything besides annoyance.

“This is just going to be a thing I have to think about now, huh?” Lily wonders, stepping past me. She’s got a carryout paper bag in one hand, a coffee in the other. “Running into you at Ravens and all? Will nowhere be safe?”

She is attempting to flee, I can tell, but I am not going to let her off that easy—especially without trying to make peace. I jog to her side to keep up, asking, “say, what is it with this town and ravens, anyway?”

Lily glances at me sideways. “Some very superstitious history involving birds here. I’d recommend asking anyone who looks over sixty, they love to chat your ear off about it.”

I struggle to keep up with Lily’s jaunty pace. She’s speeding along an uneven cobblestone road I’ve gathered to be the main window-shopping road in Dedham, which will eventually merge into the longer country roads our own neighborhood stems off of. “Say, Lily,” I offer. “I want you to know that I really had no idea we were moving in down the street from you, I don’t want it to seem like I’m keeping an eye on you, er, or something.”

“You expect me to believe that you _didn’t_ convince your family to uproot from wherever it was you lived before so you could stalk me all summer long?”

I am genuinely concerned about her considering that a real possibility—that is, until I look over and find her laughing eyes. She’s having me on. “C’mon, Potter. I know you’re not _that_ barmy.”

“So you’re not mad at me?”

“Mad at you?” Lily laughs. “You’ve seen me angry, yeah?”

“Well, yeah,” I laugh, too. Traditionally, when angry, Lily’s face turns the same shade as her hair.

“I was a bit shocked to find myself having tea with your mum having not previously known it was your mum, yes,” she goes on to say. “But angry, no. I appreciate your concern for my feelings, though.”

We pass by a shop called Bodsworths, and Lily pauses momentarily to survey their sidewalk display of flowers, buckets of lavender, peonies, honeysuckle, pink and white and yellow roses. A woman with a shock of white hair pops her head out of the shop door and shouts. “I’ll say! Lily Evans! Been too long, dearheart—take off a bundle of sunnies for your mum, would you? She’s been doing the Lord’s work at charity nights!”

“Oh, Gertie, such beautiful selection this week—you’re sure?”

“The sunnies won’t be here long, I want her to have some,” this Gertie nods insistently, gesturing toward the bucket of broad-faced yellow flowers. She swivels her gaze to me, perhaps noticing me for the first time. “Well, I’ll be—is this your fellow?” Gertie glances between Lily and I meaningfully.

An inexplicable silver thrill runs down my spine—I can only imagine Lily’s horror at the thought. _James Potter, my fellow? In his wildest dreams._

Lily looks over at me and laughs, though not as unkindly as I might have expected. More of a _oh_ _I forgot you were even here_ laugh. “Um, no, no, this is James Potter, his family just moved here.”

“A pleasure,” I incline my head toward Gertie. “It’s a lovely looking shop, ma’am.”

“Thanks alright, young man,” Gertie smiles appreciatively. “Say, if you’re ever in need of employment, I could always use a pair of strong arms around—and what’s that now?” she yells back into the shop. “Alright then—you’ll excuse me, Diedra always makes bollocks of the register—and say hello to your mum, Lily—” with that, she disappears back into the store.

“Look at you, just moved here, already got a summer job,” Lily seems amused. She extends her carryout bag to me. “Would you hold this?”

I oblige. She bends to choose a handful of sunflowers. “Gertie’s an awful nice woman, she runs this place with her daughter, her husband ran off on them a few years back. She and mum are charity friends.” She reaches for a paper bag and twine set on the stoop of the shop to tie up the bundle of sunflowers.

“Having a job would solve at least one of my current problems,” I consider as we take off down the road again.

“What problem’s that?”

“Boredom.”

“Ah,” Lily nods. “Dedham certainly isn’t known for its nightlife, I suppose.”

I smile to myself, tucking my free hand into the pocket of my shorts. What picture of me must Lily have in her head? I suppose my trouble-making escapades back at school do make me out to be some sort of reckless individual—especially to Lily, who probably wouldn’t break a rule even if her own life was at stake. “Do you suspect I’m out clubbing every night, Evans? Wasting away my youth on firewhiskey and dragon’s rum?”

Lily shrugs. We’re passing down out of town, crossing an old stone bridge over the Mother Brook River. “I don’t really know what you get up to, I guess. Especially without the other three.”

For a second it’s as if I’m outside of my body, looking down, watching Lily and I from afar. I see just two people, walking side-by-side. The situation is strange, and I haven’t yet considered that. I suppose at some point or another—to Lily’s great annoyance, I imagine—we’ve been alone before, in a classroom or in the library, passing one another in the corridor. But we’ve never been quite this alone. For as long as I can remember I have wondered what it would be like—and now, in this moment, I realize how content it makes me, being in her presence, without the distraction of our friends or other schoolmates, professors or lessons. She is just Lily. And whatever complicated feelings I have held for her—hold for her—I like her as a companion. She calms me.

I glance at her sideways, coming back to myself. Her hair is pulled into a careless ponytail, loose tendrils escaping onto her neck and around the sides of her face. She is lovely—always lovely—in this uncomplicated way. The freckles on her nose are like watercolor imprints.

Perhaps she has even forgotten to be annoyed with me. After all, I’ve got her carryout still in hand.

She notices me looking. “What’s your other problem?”

“Hm?”

“You said you had two problems—boredom, and?”

“Oh, right. Well, I’ve got no friends.”

Her eyebrows fly up. “No friends? What, you’ve gotten sacked from the group?”

“No, no,” I laugh. “Just that Remus, Peter, and Sirius have abandoned me for their various summer travels.” We duck beneath a patch of wild apple trees, taking a shortcut the neighborhood. I pluck an apple from a branch on my way through, rubbing it clean against my shirt.

“Huh,” Lily muses.

“What?”

She shrugs. “I’m just—” she looks over at me. “I’m not sure I know what to think of you, outside of that dynamic.”

“A dynamic you’ve long envied, no doubt.”

She laughs, and I feel that silvery thrill from before—I can’t remember the last time something I said evoked a genuine reaction from Lily. If ever.

“I guess I’ve never seen you like this,” she continues.

“This?”

She shrugs again, helplessly smiling. “Just—normal. No bravado.”

“What can I say—maybe it’s the fresh country air.”

She laughs again. Silver all up and down me. I’m sunk.

We’ve come to a pause in front of what I assume is Lily’s house. She looks over at me with placid green eyes. She seems lighter here, wrapped in mid-morning sun, in front of her childhood home, carrying a bunch of flowers. There is none of the burden of school in her eyes. Even her clothing feels happier—a white t-shirt under blue overalls. The look suits her—not that any look _wouldn’t_ suit her.

I don’t know exactly what to say. The atmosphere between us has changed, I think, somewhere between our meeting outside the café to where we are now. It might be small, the change, but it gives me a strange, unnamable hope. Perhaps a dangerous hope.

But dangerous has never stopped me before, has it?

Lily says, “You know, I might be able to help you with your problems.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah,” she squints up at me, reaching out a hand for her carryout bag. “Do you know how to ride a bike?”


	2. Chapter 2

_Lily_

I am not the type of girl to spend hours in front of the mirror, preening—especially not when said time could be spent improving my mind or magic. Sure, looking good gives me confidence. But it’s not usually my main concern.

This is not an indictment of girls who _do_ spend hours in front of the mirror, preening. I know girls like that. Namely: Marlene and Dorcas. It’s to their great disappointment that I'm usually uninterested in shopping, makeovers, fashion magazines, and it’s only thanks to them that I know any beauty spells at all. 

So why then—I am really quite interested to know—have I spent the last ten minutes staring at myself in the mirror, wondering: _How do I look_?

White rainbow-striped tank top, worn blue jean shorts, red hair in two scrunchie-tied braids. _Is this me?_ A whisk of mascara, a hint of dewy blush, tinted lip balm. I put my hands on my hips, a test—and sure enough, the girl in the mirror does too. I tilt my head at her— _What are you up to?_

Mum’s voice floats up the stairs—“Lily, someone here for you!”

I have to shake away the confusion about why I put something like effort into my outfit, why I put something like consideration into my makeup, why I feel something like anticipation clogging my chest.

This is stupid. I’m a grown witch. I am self-assured, confident, independent.

I grab my sunglasses from the top of my bureau and spare one last glance at that girl in the mirror—the one with questionable motives.

She looks back at me, smug.

_What the hell is her deal?_

I speed down the stairs to find mum grinning ear-to-ear in the door of the kitchen, James Potter standing close by. He beams up at me. “Hi.”

“Hey,” I glare back at mum, then looking to him expectantly. “Ready?”

“Surely,” he is still beaming, stupid sod. “Good to see you, Mrs. Evans!”

“Lovely to see you, James—you two have fun now!” Mum yells after us as I stalk quickly as I can out the door, James jogging to keep up. I dig my bike from its hiding spot behind mum’s azalea bushes, James retrieving his own bike. “Nice lady, your mum.”

“She’s unbelievable,” I return, joining him in the road.

He’s still smiling at me, and what a stupid smile. But facing it fully, my annoyance evaporates, against my better judgment. Already the summer has colored his hair a bit lighter than usual, and it’s growing out. It looks nice like that, wispy, unkempt.

I look away quickly—what am I doing?

“So, where to?” James asks, mounting his bike.

I take off down the road. “Any interest in a hidden pond?”

“Funny you should ask,” James laughs. “I would love a hidden pond.”

Dedham has many a pleasant patch of wood, many of which I frequented as a child. Given my sister’s grand dislike of me—even prior to learning about my magic—I had to spend a lot of time alone making believe on my own. Which I never really minded, until I met Severus.

I shake the thought quickly from my head. Thinking about him is no good.

“I’ve started at Bodsworths,” James calls out to me.

“Oh?”

“Yeah, yesterday was my first day. That Gertie is a real firecracker, isn’t she?”

“Gods yes,” I smile, recalling the wild spats of energy Gertie never seems to run out of. “She truly never stops talking.”

We’re passing out of our street now, turning onto a forest path. The trees above form a welcome shade that tints everything deep green. “I appreciate it, actually,” James muses. “Though she is already _very_ insistent that I match up with Diedra.”

A knot of questionable origin forms in the back of my throat. _There—what is that reaction?_ “For Merlin’s sake. The poor girl.”

“Yeah, she can do much better, I reckon.”

I shake my head. “Er, no, no, that’s not what I meant, I just mean—she must not even have a second to breathe on her own without Gertie there, dictating her every move.”

“Huh,” James chuffs. “I’ve no idea what it’s like to have a mum that wants to dictate my every move.” 

I glance over at him and see the sarcasm. “She’s a bit suffocating?”

“Suffocating is too nice of a word, really,” he returns, smiling ruefully. “It’s all I can do to get away from her this summer—she won’t get off my back about early application Auror deadlines.”

I raise my eyebrows. “The Ministry has early applications?”

James laughs. “Shouldn’t have said that to you, should I have?”

We’ve come to a fork in the forest path. I lead us to the right. “Well, actually I’m not all that keen on the idea of working for the Ministry, at the moment. I don’t like their lack of action on Anti-Dark Magic legislation.”

“That’s fair,” James replies. “If I’m being honest, I’m not certain it’s the right career for me either.”

“Rather go out for professional Quidditch?”

“You flatter, Evans—but I’m not nearly good enough for that, either.”

“Then what are you interested in?”

“You’re really sounding more and more like my mum.”

I laugh, a bit horrified. “I’m sorry, I bet you’re tired of talking about this.”

“No, no, it’s okay. Lately, I’ve been considering a charms fellowship of some sort at university, actually, if you can believe that.”

Initially, I am a bit surprised—but then, I think back to sixth year, how amid the stress of my own workload and extracurriculars, I saw very little of James Potter. Certainly, the Marauders were up to some of their usual anti-Slytherin-shenanigans, but I was rarely involved in the clean-up given all my other commitments—and, I suppose, a desire to stay as far away from Severus as possible.

Where I _do_ remember encountering James—which at the time surprised me, and still does—was at the top of N.E.W.T. level Charms, toe-to-toe with my scores. “Since when are you good at Charms?” I remember asking him. “C'mon, Evans, I’ve always been good at Charms,” he responded, with a grin and wink—“You’ve just been too distracted by my good looks to notice.”

His jest was foolish, though not entirely incorrect. Seriousness in school is not a trait I would have associated with James, especially given my tendency to focus on his negative traits—the pride and vanity, the absurd self-confidence, the constant grandstanding.

Perhaps, with those traits gone, grown out of, he is more like me than I care to admit. He’s a smart leader, friendly, good at critical thinking and problem solving under pressure. No matter what else I’ve seen in him through the years, the good was there, too, becoming more pronounced as he mature. Whether or not I was willing to notice the transformation, it happened.

And now, here we are, neighbors, taking a summer bike ride like it’s the most normal thing in the world, and he’s got very admirable, serious aspirations for the future. “Yeah? You’d be great for that.”

“You think so?”

“I do, really.”

I feel his eyes on me, but I don’t look. We’ve come to my secret pond, which is shielded from the path by a cluster of weeping willows. I stop my bike and dismount. “It’s just through here.”

James parks his bike and follows me down a small hill and through the wispy threads of willow tree. The pond is small and assuming. As a kid, I loved it like a secret only I knew. Insects buzz over its algaed, sun-soaked water, filling the afternoon with their sound.

“I used to fish here as a kid,” I tell James. “Which I was terrible at.”

“I can’t imagine you’d be terrible at anything you set your mind to.”

I look back at him. His expression is earnest, genuine. In my throat, that weird knot again. “I feel like I owe you an apology.”

James is confused. “For what?”

I look back out over the pond to the willows on the banks opposite. “Well, I think in the past I’ve been unnecessarily judgmental of you.”

James is laughing. “Oh, you mean because I’ve been a pompous jerk to you for the majority of my life?”

“Well—er, yeah.”

“Evans, _I’m_ the one who should apologize.”

I look back and there’s that earnestness. His eyes seem lights all on their own. “Suppose we call it even?”

“Friends?”

He’s held out a hand, a peace offering for all the confusing years of our youth, all the fury and misplaced anger and righteousness. I take his hand and shake.

“To forgiveness,” he says.

“To forgiveness.”

The knot is back. I try to swallow past it, but I’ve held on to his hand for just a second too long, and something in his expression somehow mirrors the feeling of the knot and my pulse beside—does he see it there, in my neck, pulsing?

I let go of his hand. He smiles.

_What does he know?_

“For starters,” I say, retreating from the pond to climb back on my bike. “You can call me Lily, okay?”

“Lily,” he tries out. My name is something special in his mouth. I ward off the knot by pedaling hard. James pulls up next to me, keeping pace.

“Only if you call me James.”

I have the stupid thought that if I do as he asks, say his name, there’s no turning back—and I don’t know why, I can’t name it, but there’s a distinct feeling of something new, something unknown, something I’m not sure I’ve prepared myself for entirely. Summer sun blinks down through the trees. I keep my eyes straight ahead.

“Alright—James then.”

I can’t see it—but I know, somehow, that he’s smiling.

***

_James_

First rule in suppressing latent feelings for Lily Evans: _Do not have sex dreams about Lily Evans._

Second rule in suppressing latent feelings for Lily Evans: _If you insist on having sex dreams about Lily Evans, don’t spend any time wallowing in one the following day, or any day after._

Third rule in suppressing latent feelings for Lily Evans: _If you fuck up the first two rules, you’re absolutely, entirely fucked._

The sex dream isn’t something I asked for, believe you me. It’s a side effect for a disease I was diagnosed with as a stupid eleven-year-old, spotting across the great hall of Hogwarts an eleven-year-old girl with red hair and a plucky look about her that would permeate my subconscious for the rest of my life, whether I liked it or not.

A decade or so later of not-well-thought-through attempts of wooing, courting, and seducing, I wised up. Lily Evans had made up her mind not to like me, and I didn’t blame her.

I lusted after her idiotically. I was fucking insufferable.

Fifth year brought a change in me. I wanted a girlfriend—perhaps, at first, motivated by a small hope that Lily would be very jealous of another girl getting to date me—and got one. And then another, and then another: First Brigid (very sweet, very stupid), then Margaret (all too interested in combing her hair constantly), then Kerstin (Slytherin, bad call), then Angelica (Ravenclaw, much smarter than me, bad call), then Susan and then Linda (twins, bad call), and finally, Eliza (a relationship that was, unsurprisingly, ruined by Lily Evans herself).

I don’t blame Lily for my past failed relationships. But I also know that the idea of being with her—however venerated an idea that was—ruined every other girl for me.

It sounds foolish, naïve, unfounded. And it is. Lily barely gave me a backward glance as a human being, let alone a potential partner. But as I grew up, the childish obsession wore off and was replaced by a more fundamental admiration, one rooted in awe of and respect for her mind, for her strength of character, for the way I saw her treat others when no one was looking.

This, of course, fucked me over even more. I was already dealing with unruly sex dreams about a girl that had threatened to hex me for the majority of my teenage years—did I deserve this flood of deep and genuine respect? I never put a name to for my feelings for Lily, complicated, explosive, and persistent that they were.

I was always too scared to label it with the word that probably fit best.

Perhaps the greatest relief to the feelings came sixth year when I started dating Eliza, and Lily started dating Owen. With our respective Hufflepuff partners, we moved away from the stupidity of all my efforts. Of course, it was painful to see her in a relationship, and happy, but I reasoned that even if it couldn’t be making her smile, I still wanted someone to make her smile. And Eliza was funny, and smart, and I enjoyed spending time with her, and she got on well with my mates. It was really all going splendidly—that is, until I had the dream.

It wasn’t a sex dream. It was just a moment: Lily and I sitting on a bench by the Black Lake. She was nestled into my side, my arm wrapped around her, our hands entwined on my thigh. Nothing much happened—we were laughing about something, talking about our plans for summer vacation. It was a cloudy day. I took Lily’s hand to my lips and she smiled at me, her face open, honest, full of love. Then she kissed my lips, and I felt the kiss permeate every part of me.

I woke up from the dream in a sweat, feeling as though I’d been torn from something so precious and so _right_ that it couldn’t have possibly just been in my head. I woke Sirius up in a panic, spilling the entire dream, asking him if I was crazy, and if I was, demanding he smack some sense into me. He did smack me, actually, but said that I wasn’t crazy, I was stupid, yes, but not crazy, and my subconscious self was just trying to tell my conscious self something I was too thick to understand.

“And what the hell’s that?” I asked, and he said, “You’re bonkers for Evans, you’re never going to get over her till she’s bonkers for you, you’re just going to have to fucking deal with it, okay? Now let me go back to sleep.”

I ended things with Eliza soon after that. I knew it wasn’t fair to date her while having be sincere, aching dreams about another girl.

As the year came to an end, I had a stern talking to with myself: Lily was not interested in me romantically, and never would be. This wasn’t to say we could never be friends. So I set my sights on friendship, because at least that meant I could be near her.

And so far, this summer, friendship is working out just splendidly. After our peacemaking moment by the pond, Lily and I go on three more bike rides, all normal and good foundational work for a (normal, good) friendship. I spend my days at Bodsworths, traversing the rickety lanes of Dedham with Diedra behind the wheel of the beat-up truck, delivering bouquets and bringing down flowers from the supply farm thirty-miles out. I write long letters to Sirius, Remus, and Peter—though I exclude the fact of Lily from them entirely. Remus and Peter respond in equal length, cheerily reporting on their travels, while Sirius can’t be bothered to write, instead making Remus say _Sirius says: Hi, thanks all for the letter, gotten laid yet this summer? Iceland_ _has approx. 0 cheeky birds._

It’s all going swimmingly indeed.

That is—until my subconscious has to go and have a stupid erotic dream in which Lily knocks on my door wearing nothing but my Quidditch jersey, dropping said jersey to the floor, taking my cock in her mouth, etc, etc, etc.

The dream unceremoniously crumbles long-term efforts to keep my (complicated, explosive, persistent) feelings for Lily at bay. They come rushing back, full force.

And begin, immediately, to cause problems.

Exhibit A:

It’s a rainy Sunday morning and I’m in the shop on my own, Gertie and Diedra off to church, when the door dings to signal a customer. I pop out from behind the counter where I was noncommittedly skimming the June issue of _Florists Monthly_. It’s Lily.

Just my luck.

Two days have passed since The Dream That Ruined Everything. I haven’t seen her since said dream. And here she is, hair long and loose slightly damp from the rain, wearing a sleeveless pink top and jeans, lips spread into a smile like lamplight in the darkness.

 _You’re sunk, Potter_.

“Quiet morning?”

“Gives me a chance to catch up on reading,” I reply, holding up _Florists Monthly_.

Lily laughs. “You’re taking this job _very_ seriously.”

I wish I could ask her to leave, right this instant, because her laugh and her face and the whole picture of it set against a backdrop of flowers is positively too much for me. But she is gone off to look around at Gertie’s elaborate displays of vases and bouquets, perusing the cold case of roses and chrysanthemums and violets—and it would be entirely rude to tell her to leave.

I slide out from behind the register to watch her as she browses, knowing full well the danger I am in. She is beautiful without trying, unaware of the way her face crinkles in concentration while reaching out to touch the flowers. She pulls out a sprig of eucalyptus and inhales its scent appreciatively.

She is turning to say “do you think—” when, in a split second, a very strange second, she finds me much closer than she expected, and, caught unawares, steps backward instinctively and immediately falters, and with a reflex so quick I can only thank Quidditch muscle memory, my arm shoots out to catch her about the waist, her hand flying in surprise to grip at my bicep, her face mere inches from mine, her breath heaving in astonishment. She laughs nervously—“Oh, sorry, I didn’t—see you there.”

There is a pause—significant, everlasting. She looks into my eyes, I look into hers.

This is no good for my current state. No good at all.

I pull her upright and detach myself immediately, knowing what the effects of prolonged contact might be on my (stupid) head. “Are you okay?”

“Yeah,” Lily bends down to pick up the fallen eucalyptus. When she looks back up at me, her face contorts into concern. “Hey—are _you_ alright?” And before I can stop her, she reaches to press the back of her hand against my forehead. “You’re very pale.”

I probably look like I’ve been hit by a train—it sure feels like it. “Er, I'm fine.” I say, stupidly, stepping back from her touch. “Listen, I should probably get back over— you know, in case anyone else comes in.”

Lily removes her hand and looks around at the empty shop, then back at me, like I’m barmy. “Oh—okay. Well, I’ll get out of your hair.”

Before I can say anything else, she’s gone, out of the shop and into the rain. I slump against the wall, groaning. I stare down at my crotch, arguably the reason I'm in this mess.

“This is all _your_ fault, you fuck.”


	3. Chapter 3

_Lily_

Lils,

I was very confused to receive your latest correspondence and can only assume you’ve been kidnapped by Potter and wrote the thing under great duress. Do you need me to contact the appropriate authorities? Write your answer in a secret code only we can understand in your next letter so I can take get you out safely.

Praying ,

Marlene

Dearest Lily,

Absolutely delighted to hear about you and James getting on—have always thought he’s a pleasant bloke, about time you two became proper friends! Been reading anything good lately? Already devoured _Wuthering Heights_ (was phenomenal, as you said it would be) and am onto _Jane Eyre_ , may now pursue a career in the countryside as a governess, what do you think? Very excited to see you next week and hear more about your summer!!!

Much love,

Dorcas

***

I’ve only been drunk twice in my life.

The first time was the summer before my fifth year, at my cousin Mary’s wedding, which was a truly awful affair, given the only people I knew were 1) My cousin Mary, who was rather preoccupied, 2) Mum and Dad, who spent the majority of the reception on the dance floor, and 3) Petunia, who, as a rule, when in my presence, is either actively ignoring me or glaring at me in an effort to assure me that I’m being ignored _and_ disliked.

That all being said, I was left to my own devices with the open bar, took full advantage, and had the hangover to prove it the following day.

The second time was sixth year, in Owen’s dorm. In that instance, the getting drunk was part of an effort to avoid interacting with his irritating Quidditch mates. My only saving grace was Amelia Davies, Hufflepuff Quidditch captain, with whom I took a shot of firewhiskey with every time one of the chaps brought up their personal statistics. Needless to say—we were plastered within an hour.

I get drunk for the third time in my life in the Potter family living room on a Thursday night in July.

***

James and I are having coffee at Ravens. Our waitress Tess—a girl I went to primary school with—thinks James is an absolute hoot and flirts with him brazenly. While he’s off to the loo, she drops off our check and asks me when I’ll be “snatching this one right up, he’s a keeper!"

“Actually, if we’re getting technical, he’s a chaser.”

Tess does not get this joke, as I knew she could not. “No, but—are you going to sleep with him? Because if you don’t, I will.”

I laugh. “Go for it, Tess. He’s all yours.”

The back of my throat, knot and all, begs to differ. I swallow it back. _Shut up_.

When James comes back, I’ve already sent Tess of with the bill. “Say,” he grins. “Thanks for the coffee.”

“If I didn’t send her off with it, she would have just stood here and salivated.”

James quirks his head at me. “Why, is she alright?”

“Oh, c’mon,” For all his intelligence, he can’t escape the general stupidity of his sex. “She’s sweet on you.”

“On _me_?”

“Don’t be thick, James, you’ve seen the eyes she’s giving you.”

Tess is coming back, so we shut up. She puts the receipt down and flashes a special smile at James. “Have a good afternoon now, thanks for stopping in.”

James smiles back uneasily. “Oh, thanks—thanks so much.”

I bite my tongue so I don’t laugh.

Tess lingers for a moment, tapping the table with her fingernails and giving James a good up-and-down before sauntering off to her next table.

I slide the receipt toward James once she's gone. "She's left you her number.”

James stands up to leave, shaking his head all the way out. I grab the receipt to follow after him, out the door and onto the street. “Oh, come on, James, give her a ring!”

I wave the receipt in his face and he snatches it, laughingly. “Me and what phone, huh?”

“Oh, you can ring her from my house,” I laugh, clapping my hands together. “We can make popcorn and prank call people in our jammies and then watch loads of Columbo.”

James is looking at me like I’m crazy, but there’s amusement sparkling in his eyes—and something else, something that calls to the unspeakable throat-knot. “Columbo?”

“Oh, it’s an American detective show, my dad’s bonkers for it and has got us all rather attached.”

James seems tickled by this. “So that’s a typical night with the Evans family?”

I shrug, nodding. "Yeah, what's it to you?"

“Well, certainly wouldn’t want you to party too hard.”

“Hey, I can _party_ , don’t you worry.”

“Oh can you? I’d like to see you try.”

I spin around to walk backward, staring him down. “Sounds a bit like a challenge if you ask me.”

James grins. “So what if it is?”

“So I want to take you on.”

“Nah, you can’t handle that.”

“Oh, c’mon, let me try.”

Is this me, Lily Evans, hopping down the street in a merry old way with James Potter, flirting with abandon? _Take you on? Let me try?_

The only reasonable explanation for this behavior is that my physical body has been taken over by an aggressively flirtatious spirit.

 _That fucker from the mirror, no doubt_.

James gives in. “Alright, then. Tell me: are you willing to skip one night with Columbo?”

***

I am standing—questioning all my choices, mind you—in front of the Potter’s front door at 7 o’clock Thursday evening, no real idea what’s in store for me on the other side.

(Not twenty minutes before, I had a real weird time with that girl in the mirror, the one that made me pull on some form-fitting jeans, a cute bell-sleeved top, tiny gold hoops, and a spritz of perfume, despite every protest on my part—she’s actually quite mean, quite insistent, and all in all, I’m a bit scared of her.)

It’s not James that answers my knock but rather a taller, greying version of James—right down to the round, horn-rimmed glasses. “Ah, this be our honored guest—Lily?”

“Yes, Lily! Good to meet you, Mr. Potter.”

“Now you’ve got to call me Fleamont, really, I’m too young to be a Mr. Come in, come in, the gang’s all here, James! Euphemia! Look who I’ve found!”

It’s immediately obvious that James challenging me to out-party him is about to mainly involve me crashing Potter Family Friday Night. James and his mum are sprawled on their living room couches, smiling up at me with equal fervor—this is something that must run in the family.

I am now nervous for no identifiable reason. “Um, I brought chocolates,” I say, holding the box up lamely.

“Excellent!” Mr. Potter exclaims, taking the box off my hands joyfully. “The missus will not allow me to eat these, but I will eat them anyway!”

“Welcome, Lily, so good to see your pretty face,” Mrs. Potter beams at me, rising to take my hands in her hands. She somehow looks both graceful and comfy in clean white slacks and a blue sweater. I would give anything to achieve this level of easy elegance. “Can I get you a drink?”

“Mum, mum, I’ll get her a drink,” James protests, flying up from the couch. “And anyway we have to discuss our winning strategy, come on now,” he tells me while taking my arm, steering me away from his mum and off down the hall.

“Winning strategy, huh?” I ask, trying to ignore my knot-based reaction to his hand on me.

James leads me back to the kitchen, letting go of my arm and heading straight to an elaborately stocked bar cart. He goes to work immediately, grabbing a glass from a rack above the cart and filling it with ice. “Yes, yes,” he says, distracted by his drink-making task. “It’s charades tonight.”

I lean against the kitchen counter. “Ah, so you invited me because you needed a partner, is that it?”

James looks back at me briefly to flash that dumb smile. “No, it’s as good an excuse as any to spend time with you, I reckon.”

_Now—why’s he got to go and say something like that?_

James has donned grey drawstring pants and a white t-shirt for the occasion: Casual Summer James. I withhold—with a great force of will—my opinion on how he looks in said outfit.

He’s pouring I don’t know how many different types of liquids from various bottles into my glass before topping it all off with some sort of pink syrup. Finished, he hands the drink to me and waits expectantly as I take a sip. I raise my eyebrows. “Really, now?” I squint into the glass, wondering how he put in so much alcohol and I can’t taste a bit of it.

“Good, innit?”

I take another gulp. “Maybe you ought to just go ahead and make another?”

And that has him laughing, and no, I’m not looking at his forearms—no, I’m certainly not.

Three more of these mysterious concoctions later, James and I are tied 12-and-12 with Mr. and Mrs. Potter. The alcohol pools warmly in my abdomen, and I’m comfortable enough to let go of the strangeness of my circumstance: me, here with the Potter family on a Friday night, playing charades, laughing, joking, drinking—generally having a jolly good time.

My family’s love of Columbo aside—this _is_ certainly more of a party.

Two drinks after this, I am downright ecstatic that I came, and I relish in how unexpectedly fantastic James and I are at reading each other’s body language for a body-language based game, particularly on magic-related words. We’re nailing Wolfsbane, Divination, Dumbledore, Witches’ Quarterly, Elderflower Wine, etc, etc, etc.

Mr. and Mrs. Potter—I suppose with the undeniable advantage of having been married to one another for, I presume, many years—are also great partners. But, to their great disappointment, Mrs. Potter slips up on Aparecium—“What are you doing, reading a book? Reading a—oh, the Prophet? No, no, oh, this is—okay, okay, wand, wand, yes, a spell? Yes! Oh! Okay—and you’re looking, searching, oh, bollocks, Fleamont, what on Merlin’s grand earth—opening, opening, okay, a door? Alohomora? No, no, but I’m close?”—which ultimately gives the win to James and I.

And because I’ve had many drinks and am feeling a bit like I’m nestled in a rosy cloud, miles above the ground, when James reaches out to shake my hand in victory, I am not happy with this response at all and instead throw my arms around him, and he laughs, snaking his arms around my back.

And I am thinking—or should I say Drunk Lily is thinking— _oh boy oh boy oh boy oh boy what have I done_.

The game is effectively over, our victory punctuating what seems to be a very long-standing and tense charades-related competition between James and his parents. “Usually I’m paired with Uncle Syd,” he tells me as his mum walks around collecting empty glasses. “Who is decidedly _not_ a good partner. He’s always forgetting he’s not allowed to talk.”

“And before that, it was Brita, our dear host student from the Netherlands,” Mrs. Potter explains. “For whom the language barrier did, often, cause a real disconnect.”

The elder Potters say they're off for their nightly walk and I wave an enthusiastic goodbye to them as they leave out the front door. James is looking at me with great amusement, arms propped up behind his head. “On a scale of one to Sirius almost falling off the Astronomy tower, how sloshed are you right now?”

I can’t believe he’s asking me this question. Sloshed? I feel great. Ready to run sixteen miles, if need be. I sit up, gather my hair into what is most likely a gorgeous bun, and tie it off. I place my hands steady on my thighs and close my eyes.

James is laughing. “Are you about to apparate?”

I hold up a finger to shush him. I clear my throat. I stay like this for thirty seconds before rolling my neck from side to side, then opening up my eyes.

“There,” I say, spreading my arms out, like _ta-da!_ “Not drunk at all.”

James bursts into laughter. I smile. Of course I’m drunk, I’m swimming in it, and in this instant I’m sure of only that one other thing:

I fancy James Potter. I fancy him bad.

Drunk Lily, unfortunately, knows this, as does the knot in the back of my throat, as does the girl in the mirror, as does my pulse and my heartbeat.

This, in all, is no good combination.

I stand up abruptly, aware in all of an instant the situation I’m in—drunk in James Potter’s living room. Of course, I’m _drunk_ in James Potter’s living room, and standing up abruptly does not work out great, so I wobble, unbalanced, and James jumps to his feet and catches me before I stumble right into the coffee table, and I can’t help but think this is the second time this week that he’s prevented me maybe falling to my death. Perhaps he’s aware of this, too, because he’s looking down at me with great concern, probably thinks I’m positively deep in the pond, drowning, giving the way I’m conducting myself.

“Oops,” I say, my voice strangely low, because I’m drunk and he’s close and there’s something about his mouth that looks very _right there_. 

“Oops,” he echoes.

I step closer to him, perhaps unconsciously. He leans closer to me, perhaps unconsciously. The knot in the back of my throat is very tight. I’m afraid if I breathe, I will explode.

There’s the distinct possibility of us kissing. It shimmers, possible, reachable—waiting.

And I—and Drunk Lily, and mirror girl—want it, bad. I can almost feel it happening, every sensation, the release of tension, the heat of his body, the question and then the answer: And has it not happened? Or are we just standing very still, waiting for someone from backstage to remind us of our lines?

The Moment Where We Should Kiss ends suddenly when I say “I don’t—” as James says “we should—” and the overlapping words mix into absolute nonsense, and we both laugh, tension gone, moment passed, and our bodies move away from the Space They Were In, and all that is left is my swimming head, James’ unreadable look (hurt? defeat? longing?) and the finality with which the night has drawn to an end.

“Think I ought to go home,” I do feel a bit sober now, or at least pre-hungover, my chest heavy with something unfulfilled.

“I’ll walk you.”

“No, no—” I say quickly. “I’ll be okay.”

“Are you sure?”

In another timeline I’m not a coward and I kiss him now, anyway, despite the fact that probably I shouldn’t, probably it’s a bad idea—but whatever other timeline that is, it’s not this one, and I’m just a coward who needs to go to bed. “Yeah. I’ll be fine. Tell your mum and dad thanks for the—thanks for the fun night, yeah?”

James runs a hand through his unruly summer hair, which is a cruel thing to do to me, regardless of whether or not he knows that. “I will. Goodnight, Lily.”

_Who is this boy? What has he done to me?_

_What have I let him do to me?_

“Night, James.”

***

_James_

The Morning After I Think Drunk Lily Evans Was Considering Kissing Me: I am wide awake at six a.m., a positive mess of a boy.

For a strange, unexpected, sparkling moment in Last Night Land, Lily's mouth was so close to mine that the dream I had years ago of us sitting by the Black Lake came rushing back like a deluge. I don’t know where the moment came from, or what it meant, or if it was just the alcohol talking. But something in Lily’s face in that moment was different from anything I’ve ever seen, and I can’t place it, and maybe I’ll never know—but what _is_ certain is that I'll never forget that look.

I’m ruined for sleep now. I get out of bed, brush my teeth, and chuck on some shorts. I can at least try to run the uncertainty out of my system.

I jog out of the house and onto the street, immediately awash in tangerine sunrise. I pick up my pace, eager and willing to run all the way to the edge of Dedham, the edge of England, the edge of the world—however long it takes till I don’t feel what I’m feeling.

This plan is effectively ruined when I’m not halfway down the street and I hear someone yelling after me. “James!”

For a healthy moment I assume I’m still asleep, wrapped in some gauzy dream, turning into the orange light to find a figure approaching, and then emerging into my sight as Lily, pajamaed, face etched in something I still can't read.

But I am definitely awake, breath labored, and she is right in front of me, saying, “Um, hi.”

“Hi.” I want to laugh—though I don’t—because twice now within twenty-four-hours has her nearness petrified me into this state. My heart, inside my chest, is an annoying clattering thing.

“James,” she says, very slowly, like she’s pronouncing it out loud for the first time. “I’m not—I'm not drunk anymore.”

Now I do laugh—I can’t help it. “Is that what you came out here at the break of dawn to tell me?”

“No,” she says, quickly. She looks into my eyes, fully, directly, and the unreadable look from last night finally crystallizes into something solid, something recognizable: Yearning.

I have approximately zero seconds to come to terms with this before Lily reaches her hands to the side of my face and pulls my mouth to hers.

If anyone had asked, years ago, how I wanted the first time I kissed Lily Evans to look, I wouldn’t have had any answer—namely, I suppose, because I thought of it as some cosmic impossibility.

But here—now? Never mind I’m shirtless and sweating, never mind that we’re out in the middle of the road, never mind my total and utter inability to believe that this is happening, that Lily is kissing me, that I’m kissing Lily.

Because she is—and I am.

My hands have found her back, pulled her closer. She lifts her lips away and I open my eyes to find her staring, unsure, floundering. I kiss her again, and her mouth is warm, answering. Then I pull back, and she blinks, and blinks again, and smiles so beautifully that it’s like a second sunrise. This light I feel spread over me like peace.

Lily slides her hands off my face, slow enough to trace down the curve of my jaw, fingers ghosting across my lips before falling away. She steps back.

She knows exactly what she’s done.

“I’ll see you around,” she says, before turning and walking back the way she came, steeped in sunlight—leaving behind an even bigger mess of a boy.


	4. Chapter 4

_Lily_

“I have a problem.”

“Problem?”

“Well—a conundrum.”

“Conundrum?”

“Yeah. James and I, we, er, we—well, we kissed. Well— _I_ kissed him.”

Its midday in central London on a Friday, and the restaurant is packed. Dorcas and I are squished into an ill-lit corner booth, waiting on Marlene to meet us for lunch. I wring my hands together; my anxiety is potent, restless. I don’t want Marlene to know, just yet, what happened between James and I, because I know what her reaction will be (“what the _fuck_ were you thinking”) and right now, I need a more measured response.

Dorcas—with her cut-jagged-at-the-jaw black hair, peter-pan collar, unfailing dimples—raises her eyebrows at me. “And how did _that_ happen?”

The story feels like just that—a story, fictional, something that happened to someone else. I explain the weird circumstance—Thursday night charades, Mr. and Mrs. Potter, all the drinks, the strange almost-kiss. “And I _did_ want to kiss him, bad, but I thought maybe it wasn’t a good look, what with us being drunk—and then it killed me all night, and I couldn’t sleep, I just stared at the ceiling, hating myself for not doing it, and this morning I was down for coffee because sleep was no use and then I saw him out the window, he was going for a jog, and I just went out and—and I kissed him.”

Dorcas is wide-eyed, processing. “Right, okay, hmm...lots going on here. Lots to think about.” Our waiter comes over and sets a pint and a water. Dorcas takes a long sip of the beer, foam catching at her lip. She wipes at it offhandedly, looking over me intently. “I mean—this is like a full 180 on the Potter situation, Lily. Like—you’re what? Dating him now?”

“Fuck,” I laugh. “No, no, we’re not dating, I don’t think—blimey, this all happened not _hours_ ago, and I’m just—I don’t know what to think. I don’t know what it means.”

Dorcas leans back against the high-topped booth. She’s always been the more contemplative member of our trio, a steady shoulder to lean on, a calm in the storm. Which is precisely why I am speaking to her about this, and not Probably-Started-The-Fire Marlene McKinnon.

“Well, okay: why did you kiss him?”

I take a long drink of water. The memory of alcohol still pounds faintly at the back of my head. “I wanted to.”

“Because—?”

I look down to avoid her eyes. “Well I sort of, I dunno, fancy him, I guess.”

“Hmmm.”

I look up and find my friend biting back laughter. “What?”

“Oh, c’mon, Lily,” she guffaws. “Not last _year_ you couldn’t be bothered to pay this bloke one ounce of attention and now you’re sitting here telling me you _kissed_ him because you _fancy_ him?” Dorcas gesticulates with her hands, trying to prove her point. “I mean, forgive me for having a _reaction_ to this information.”

“Alright, yeah, I know, trust me! I know.” I rub my lips together. “I don’t know what happened, Dorcas. Just—one second I’m taking a bike ride with him, chatting and all, normal stuff, and then the next I’m thinking about his stupid _forearms_ , and I just—I don’t know what happened.”

“Listen, don’t worry. I know exactly what you should do.”

“Really?”

“Yeah.” Dorcas leans forward. “You should sleep with him.”

“ _What?_ ”

“Just to see,” she shrugs, as if this is a totally normal, level-headed thing to suggest. “What it’s like, you know—sleeping with the enemy.”

“I can’t believe you.”

“I’m very serious,” she assures me, revisiting her beer. “You’ve clearly got a thing for his forearms—why not check out the rest? Quidditch players are athletic lovers, that I can assure you.”

I throw up my hands. “Oh, you just _had_ to bring Finn Doyle into this conversation, didn’t you?”

Dorcas laughs. “I miss his body, I’m sorry, I can’t help it.”

“You’re mental, you’re absolutely mental.”

“Okay, okay, I’m sorry,” Dorcas reaches out and grabs my hand across the table. “I’m sorry. Let’s be serious. Okay. You and James—I mean, why not give it a shot? Even if it’s just a summer fling—you might as well go for it. You never know, Lils.”

Her words have good weight. Despite all my hesitations, it can’t be for nothing that I haven’t stopped thinking about this morning, orange sun, our lips. I put a finger to my mouth, unconsciously. “Maybe you’re right.”

“Always am. And just in time, too,” she’s looking over my shoulder now, waving. I turn to find Marlene approaching, blonde curls bouncing, smile electric.

“My favorite witches!” She shrieks, throwing her arms around me, then Dorcas, who she slides into the booth next to, and whose beer she reaches to finish off. “Oh, gods, thanks, I was parched. I’ll get you another—oh, please tell me you didn’t already talk about all the fun stuff already?”

“Sorry, Marls,” I say, with a smile and a shrug. “Nothing exciting here to report.”

***

After a fun and exhausting day, I return to an empty house. Mum’s left a note— _off to_ _Dupont’s for a bite, be back late!_ _xoxo—_ so I settle in on the couch with a plate of leftovers. I click on the telly and watch mindlessly, stewing over Dorcas’ advice.

I am torn in two distinct directions. The first is the direction of James—on whom, allegedly, I now have a crush. A big old stupid crush.

The second direction is far, far away from James, on whom, allegedly, I have a big old stupid crush.

Neither feels exactly right. The only thing my heart and mind can agree on is that either way, I’m fucked.

_Lovely._

On the telly a man and woman are fighting, seemingly, about how deeply they love one another. The yelling turns to kissing, and they take their passionate embrace to bed, camera panning away just as it’s getting good.

Add this to this list of reasons I’m fucked: I’m positively randy. If a soap can get me worked up—well, that’s how I know there’s a real issue.

I switch off the telly and take my dish into the kitchen. While I wash it, I stare out the window above the sink, wondering if I squint hard enough if can see past all the houses to the Potters. Is James sitting around, chewing his nails, thinking about me?

All the bravado I possessed this morning—marching up to him, kissing him, walking right off—is gone. In its stead is a biting fear that I’ve gone and ruined whatever friendship we have tentatively forged. 

And then Dorcas’ suggestion, swirling around in my head like an annoying fish: _You should sleep with him._

I take a cold shower, lay down in bed, close my eyes, and try to think of nothing.

Perhaps I will wake up in a normal world, one where James Potter doesn’t live down the street, I don’t fancy him, I’ve never kissed him, and I’ve never given a single stray thought to his arms—let alone his forearms.

***

In the morning, two things are clear:

1) I have woken up in a world where James Potter does live down the street, I do fancy him, I have kissed him, and have thought about his forearms constantly, forever

2) While I entered the sacred realm of sleep with some sort of conviction to _not_ dream of James, my unconscious mind had quite the opposite planned, for in sleep I witnessed the following scene:

_Hogwarts, in autumn. Me, rushing through the corridor, late for something, or anxious, or else excited, no books or parchment in hand, arriving to a Charms classroom, empty—save_ _James, uniform in disarray, sleeves rolled to the elbows, tie loose, sweater untucked, leaning against a desk with all the ease in the world, lips curling into a smile when he sees me._

_My breath catches in my throat—and I go to him, and he catches me, body, lips, heart, all._

_The heat is immense, and immediate. I mold to him like liquid, hands sliding up into his hair, pulling him down to me, absolutely impatient for his kiss, and he laughs into my mouth, hands warm on my hips, his appreciation of me already evident. I groan, affected, and he’s spun me around, set me on the desk, my legs hugging about his waist._

_He releases my mouth and slides his hands up to my face, breathing deeply, thumbs stroking at my cheeks and jaw. “Well hi,” he says._

_“Hi, hi,” I am exasperated, craning to kiss his neck, make him feel my urgency._

_A noise from the back of his throat tells me he feels it, too, but is trying his best to resist. “Did you have a nice day?”_

_I grab his chin between my fingers and kiss him, brutally, deep, my tongue is insistent on his. “Sod my day,” I breathe._

_James groans. I am wrestling with his sweater, pushing it up and over his head, and then am onto his pants, yanking at the fly, shoving them half down his legs. “Fuck, Lils,” he says, laughing. “Are you on some sort of schedule here?”_

_In lieu of a response, I shove him forward, urging him, politely, with force, down onto a chair. He looks up at me, hair awry, face flushed, half dressed, half undressed. I make sure he’s watching me closely as I make short work of my own sweater, then unbutton my shirt, shrug it off, unclasp the bra beneath, shove that off, and when I’m topless and sure that he’s really paying attention, I bend to remove not my skirt but my panties._

_Then I climb onto his lap, take his face in my hands, kiss him deep, and now he’s right there with me, hands sliding up the backs of my thighs, then between my legs, then—ooh._

_"Please,” I beg. And he obliges, and obliges, and obliges, until I’m only nerve endings and light, keening against his neck, hips trembling in pleasure._

_He kisses my neck as I emerge, finding him and his smile, precious, open. I kiss the sides of his mouth, gently. “My day was shit,” I say. “Till now.”_

I jolt from the dream—affected—delirious—and it feels very real, almost rudely so—was I not just in that classroom, his hands on me, stroking?

 _Fucking hell_.

I rise from bed, frenzied. I go to the bathroom and splash my face with cold water, looking up to interrogate my reflection in the mirror. Even she is flustered.

_What the hell have we gotten ourselves into, huh?_

***

Saturday afternoon: I sit on the stoop, nursing a cup of tea, staring off into the middle distance. Mum pops down beside me after I don’t know how long. “Going somewhere, love?”

“Maybe,” I say, non-committedly.

“New dress?”

“Yeah,” I nod. The tiered-blue sundress falls halfway down my calves. The material is light, breathable. “Marlene picked it out for me. It’s not too much?”

“No, not at all.” She kisses my hair. “Just lovely. Done with your tea?”

I hand her my cup. “Thanks, mum.”

She leaves back inside. I rub my hands all over my face. I pull my hair up with a clip and stand up.

It’s now—or never.

I walk all the way to town in an effort to dissipate all the nervous energy buzzing through my body. (Only sort of works.) High street is lively with activity, people out to shop or eat or grab a pint. When I reach Bodsworths, I stand out on the busy sidewalk, willing my lungs to fill with air. _Keep it together, Evans. Just—keep it together._

With a deep breath and perhaps misplaced courage, I pull open the door and enter.

The shop is crammed almost wall-to-wall with shoppers. Through the throng, I spy Gertie at the register, and Diedra off to my left, replenishing a display of peonies.

James, however, is nowhere to be seen.

Carefully, trying not to step on any toes, I edge my way through the crowd. Diedra spots me and smiles. Her long black hair is clipped back with silver shells. “Lily, hi,” she says, her voice barely audible among the din.

“Hi, Diedra,” I smile back. “Beautiful peonies!”

“Aren’t they? Can’t keep up with them, really.”

“Say—is James around today?”

“Yeah, yeah,” she inclines her head toward the back of the shop. “He’s unloading. Go on back.”

“You sure?”

“Lily, yes,” she laughs. “Go on.”

I smile at her gratefully, and continue on past browsers, stepping off into the narrow back of shop. A door at the edge of the room is propped open, letting in a swathe of sunlight. I walk into the frame and pause. Out back is the tiny gravel strip that backs into all the High street shops. Behind Bodsworths is a truck, its bed full of flowers—and James, sweaty, unloading.

My heartbeat responds accordingly (loud, fast).

If I was want to change my mind and retreat, it’s too late—James turns, crate of flowers in hand, and sees me, stopping in his tracks.

I wave, pathetically. His lips break into a smile, and he is unfrozen, walking toward me. “Lily Evans,” he says, setting down the crate with some others near the door. “As I live and breathe.”

“Sorry want to bug you at work, but—”

“Crikey, _please_ bug me at work,” he laughs, walking past me in the doorway and grabbing a canteen of water. I watch as he tosses the lid off and gulps. The movement his throat makes as he swallows reminds me—stupidly—of dream-James.

I have to close my eyes, briefly, to make sure I separate real-reality from dream-reality. I can’t have a rational conversation with him if I continue to think about his fingers in me, moving— _oh fuck, there you’ve gone._

“Alright?”

I open my eyes and James is leaning up against the other side of the doorway. There’s a trickle of sweat staining the top of his tshirt. I stare.

 _For fuckssake, Lily. Pull it TOGETHER_.

“Yeah, yeah,” I rush out, shifting my weight from one foot to the other.

In all of an instant, I’m not quite sure what to say. Certainly, I can’t say “listen James, I fancy you bad, I want to snog you senseless, I’ve only just last night had a _very_ sexy dream about you, let’s try it out in daylight, shall we?”

Certainly can’t say any of that.

I settle on: “I won’t keep you. I just wanted to, er, talk.”

James takes another great drink of water and caps off the canteen. He sets it on back just inside the storeroom. His eyes sparkle at me. “Talk?”

I’m not sure how I’m expected to concentrate when his shirtsleeves are cuffed, just a bit, and his arms are just out there, all muscled, shiny with sweat. And with the way he’s looking at me—can he not just see right through me? Has he already seen into my head, seen all my subconscious desires?

He pushes up off the doorframe, close enough to me now that I have to tilt my head up slightly to see his eyes. “Is this about yesterday?”

“Y—” I have to clear my throat. “Yes.”

“And that—was that part of some sort of long-form prank you’re pulling on me?”

I falter for a moment. _Long-form prank?_ I’m amazed he thinks I would have the forethought—or patience—to pull off such a ludicrous prank. Then again—I should remember who I’m talking to. “You think I’m pranking you?”

A shadow of something moves across his face, and I see that he’s genuinely worried. “I don’t know what to think.”

We are more on the same page than he knows. “Well, if it makes you feel any better I don’t—I don’t know what to think either, except that I—” my voice quiets, unsure of itself. “I _liked_ what—happened.”

The shadow passes off of his face, and I see the corners of his mouth twitch. “Yeah?”

“Yeah,” I say, nodding. “I wouldn’t mind that, er,” I shrug. “Happening again.”

James steps right up against me now, and I have to swallow, hard, because his closeness feels both familiar and completely new. I take my hands, a bit unsteady, unsure, to his chest. Behind glasses, his eyes are some new, beautiful shade of gold. His hands have rounded my face, palms warm.

Perhaps irresponsibly—given the fact that any second Gertie or Diedra could burst into the storage room and happen upon us—I lean in and close the space between us.

James sighs into me. His lips are sweet, unhurried. My lips slide open under his, fingers curling into his shirt. He spreads his thumbs over my jaw. He's so warm. Our bodies pressed together, and the fact of his tongue, and his hands, are enough a reminder of dream-heat that before I can stop it a low sound has emerged from the back of my throat, embarrassingly wanting. 

James pulls away, smiles at me. He looks a bit like he’s torn open his first Hogwarts letter. I feel something similar bubbling in my sternum—exhilaration, slow and fast all at once.

And buried deep within that feeling is a flicker, a danger. _Be careful, Lily._

I banish the thought. I’m heady in the feeling, a good feeling, James warm against me. I want him. It’s that simple—simple enough for now.

His voice is low. “Do you think this is a bad idea?”

I understand why he asks. “It might be,” I say, spreading my fingers over his shirt, smoothing the crinkle I’ve made. “But—it _feels_ good.”

This affects him—I see his jaw twitching, his throat contracting as he swallows.

And just then Diedra pops into the back room, and we turn and jump apart, and she laughs, embarrassed, “Oh, so sorry!”

“It’s okay, it’s okay,” I say, laughing nervously, too. “I’m just—um,” I look back at James, and there’s something so open and honest in his face, that I can’t not smile back, furiously. “I’m just going, now, anyway.”

James stuffs his hands in his pockets. “Goodbye, Lily.”

I don’t want to go, I want to stay, kiss him till we’re dizzy—but, of course, I wouldn’t want Diedra to be watching. So I slide past her, turning just at the last second to take one last look at James—who is running a hand through his hair, smiling softly back at me, _godamn him_ —before emerging once more into the busy shop, the madness an exact match to my chaotic pulse. I zig-zag through the crowd and exit out onto High street.

On the sidewalk, I press my fingers to my lips, laughing to myself like a maniac.

_James Potter? This is because of James Potter?_

_Yeah, that’s it, Evans. You’re officially_ fucked.


	5. Chapter 5

_James_

Remus,

Hope you’re well. Look—I’ve held off writing about this, but I’m at a real crossroads, and could use your honest advice—please don’t tell Sirius/Peter, just yet. It’s all a bit delicate.

Here’s the short of it: Lily and I have become friends ( _that’s_ a longer story, another time), and lately, things have changed a bit, and I’m not quite sure exactly what’s going on, but I know that now it’s more than just friendship.

I don’t think I need to expound on how this is affecting me, emotionally. You’ve always been a patient and caring witness to that particular situation. I suppose what I’m asking for, in all, is maybe a warning to be careful—or, I guess, alternatively, encouragement to stay the course.

The reality is, I think if this ends poorly, I might be absolutely useless for the rest of my life. But, if it doesn’t—well, that “if” is keeping me up at night.

Possibly, I’ve already made up my mind—and now I’m just hoping for the blessing of a sane person.

Am I a fool? Is this the end of me?

Remus, thanks.

Yours,

James

***

James,

I’ve a million questions—but, in time. You’re right: if this ends poorly, you’re done for. But if you don’t give it a hard try, you’re done for, too. Choosing between death and death always amounts to death of some kind, yeah?

Lily is a smart person (I know you know this) and if she likes you, she’ll give you an equal, thoughtful chance.

And I know, really, no matter what I say, you _have_ already made up your mind.

Write me how things are going— I’ll be here. Good luck, mate.  
  
Best,

Remus

***

“Hand me the—er, a big wooden spoon, it’s just over, yeah behind the—yeah, thanks.”

I hand Lily said wooden spoon, and she really takes the fruitcake batter to task. She’s convinced its treason of a sort that I’ve never tasted a fruitcake that I cared for, and has set about making one, from scratch, at nine in the evening, confident that her own unique recipe will surely sway my opinion on the pastry as a whole.

Of course I came over with the whole-hearted intent to neck her senseless, but from my vantage point tucked in the corner between counters, watching her scurry from cupboard to counter and back again, wiping flour and batter mindlessly onto her apron, I am content after all. It feels a bit domestic, really, watching her bake. Certainly I feel useless beyond providing her an occasional utensil—not, in all, because I wouldn’t help her with the process, but because I can tell from the way she bites her lip in concentration that she couldn’t be bothered to have my interference, especially when she’s trying to prove a point by curtesy of fruitcake.

There’s a lovely flush coloring her face and neck from all the running about, finding ingredients, chucking this and that into the large mixing bowl. She’s thrown her hair up in a hasty catch-all—which, unsurprisingly, looks gorgeous, so many stubborn, fiery strands floating down to frame her brightened cheeks. It hasn’t escaped my attention that she’s wearing cloth shorts that barely hit the tops of her thighs, a tight t-shirt that leaves little to be thought of besides the figure beneath. It’s all I can do to hide in the corner of the counters, watching her bend and reach, each movement an encouragement for the clothing to move out of its place, riding up her thighs and stomach, revealing skin that—regardless of her intention—serves well to taunt me in my helpless corner.

While I’ve surely moved beyond my most juvenile schoolboy infatuation, the overwhelming physical attraction to Lily endures—and is, in fact, only intensified by the memory of her kissing me in the back of the flower shop, body pressed into mine, fingers clutching at my shirt.

If I’m to survive this night, I’ve got to proceed with caution.

Lily is pouring the batter into a baking tin now, using a spoon to scrape all the extra from inside the bowl. I take the bowl from her once she’s done, setting it down in the sink and turning on the faucet to rinse it out. “Oh, thanks,” she says, looking back at me, surprised.

“I’ve been no help, it’s the least I could do.” I reach for the dirty utensils she’s used, piling those into the sink as well.

She’s staring at me in earnest now, torn from her baking. “S’alright, Potter. Nice of you.”

I turn to the sink, reaching for the dish soap, smiling. “It’s James, yeah?”

“Mmm. James.”

By the time I’ve rinsed the messy dishes and left them to dry, Lily has the fruitcake in the oven and is winding up a timer. She sets it on the counter and takes off her apron, hanging it on a hook next to the icebox. She turns and looks at me. “It’s an hour till that’s done.”

“An hour, eh?”

“Yeah.”

It occurs to me that the baking, all along, was a stalling mechanism. Lily’s demeanor in this moment—leaning against the icebox, hands wound together in front of her body, looking over at me nervously—suggests that she’s been avoiding something since the moment she let me in.

“Is everything okay?” I ask, because it occurs to me, too, that maybe I’ve been too assumptive so far, that I’m apt to take things too fast or too intense because of my own feelings, that I need to give her time to come to it on her own terms.

Lily doesn’t respond right away. For a minute, she just stares. The kitchen is dim, lit only by three warm overhead lights. She releases her hands from each other, props them up on her hips. Her shirt rides up, revealing the skin of her belly. I imagine sliding my hands over her bare skin, up her back, then to the front, rounding her breasts. She looks so warm.

I breathe in deeply through my nose. I need to slow down. _One goal you should have is absolutely not jizzing your pants before she’s even touched you_.

“Yeah, everything’s fine,” she finally says, smiling. “Fancy a tour?”

I’ve little choice but to follow her out of the kitchen, into the sitting room. She spreads her hands out wide. “This is where we—sit.”

“Lovely place to sit,” I say, my voice low.

Lily turns and leads me toward the central staircase. She glances, “Um, mum and dad are sleeping, so, erm, let’s go quietly.”

I nod.

We climb the dark stairs into a narrow hallway. Lily turns into another, narrower corridor, which stems off into two doors. She points at the door on the right, whispering, “That’s Petunia’s old room. She won’t let me in anymore because she thinks I’ll put a curse on her things.”

The second, then, must be Lily’s room. We step in and she shuts the door behind us gently. “I’ve sound-charmed in here,” she says in a normal tone of voice, walking toward a small table to click on a lamp and the strands of twinkly lights crisscrossing the ceiling.

Her room is clean and smells, somehow, of the sea. Perhaps it’s a spell. There’s not much to it—a bed in the corner with soft green sheets, a handsome wood chest of drawers topped with a circular mirror and ceramic dishes of jewelry. A terra-cotta pot with a confidently leafy plant in front of three tall, street-facing windows. In one corner is a desk cluttered with notebooks, jars of pencils and quills, a vase full of tulips. I walk to take a closer look at the neatly framed prints on her walls: impressionist paintings and sketches of flowers and trees, the photos of Lily with her friends, her mum and dad and Petunia, one of her as a little girl grinning with an ice cream cone.

I like thinking of her in this room, growing up, bringing her spell books home on holidays to study for exams, having to practice magic with the door locked. With an intensity I’m little prepared for, I want to know everything about how she’s felt in here, every color of every thought, every mood, every happiness, every disappointment, every daydream, every grief. I turn to find her leaning against her desk, watching me with curiosity.

“What?”

One thing I know I can’t do is tell her exactly what I’m thinking. So, I temper it into a smaller truth. “Just, I never in my wildest dreams thought I’d find myself in this particular room.”

“And now that you’re in it, what do you want to do?”

If I didn’t know any better, I’d say Lily is looking at me quite coyly, her lips set in a small, closed-mouth smile, her toes curling against the floor.

_If she’s going to play a game, I’m going to play right back._

“I dunno,” I shrug nonchalantly, turning and walking over to her bed. I take a seat on the edge. “Any good books in here to read? There’s still—what? Fifty minutes to kill?”

Lily is chewing at a full smile, I can tell—but she’s doing a winning job of suppressing it. “Actually don’t have any books, they’ve all been stolen.”

“Stolen?”

“Yeah,” she says, pushing off the desk and sitting down next to me on the bed. She leans back on her palms. “And it’s a real shame. Those books were prized possessions.”

“Whoever did that ought to be punished to the fullest extent of the law.”

“Absolutely. Given the worst sentence possible.”

“Say, Lily?”

“Mhm?”

“They forgot, I’d say, roughly sixty books.”

She’s off her palms, looking to where my gaze has found several tall stacks of books on the floor across from the bed. On top of one stack is a frothy fern spilling out of its container. “Now, how could they miss those?”

“A bad thief, maybe,” I turn and Lily is close to me now, leaning by my shoulder to get a look at her books, safe and sound on the floor of her room. Her eyes are deep, deep green. If I’m not careful, I’ll fall right in.

She looks from my eyes to my lips, to my eyes again. I know she feels this static pulsing between us. It has a bite to it, like something alive. “A right lousy thief, I’d say.”

“If you’re gonna come in and steal books,” I murmur, moving a hand ever-so-gently to her thigh. “You gotta make sure you get all the books.”

Her eyelashes flutter, and I think her patience has run out, because now she’s taken hold of my face and brought it down to hers.

Am I expected to comport myself? Am I supposed to take this slow, like a gentleman, tell her to take it easy, let’s not rush things?

Her hands grip at my shoulders, pulling me to her, and I take to her waist, fingers sliding round her back, under her shirt. She _is_ warm. Tongue-hungry, all-consuming, sliding herself into the curve of my side, her leg swinging to hook over mine. I lift her, palms spread on her hips—barely anything between my fingers and her skin, just flimsy cloth—till she straddles my leg, pressed into me fully. It’s all I can do to fall back onto the bed, allow her to fold over me, her weight the only thing tethering me to earth.

Our lips make fast loose work of kissing. I want her to pin me back and tell me what I’ve done wrong. Her power over me is ludicrous; unfathomable. She kisses the sides of my mouth, off onto my jaw, presses into my neck with a fervor that sets my entire body on high-alert. My reactions are quickly becoming difficult to control, and in the way she pauses, lifts her head from me, half-smiles, laughs a little—I know she can tell, what with the evidence pressing into her thigh.

I lift a hand from her leg and wipe at my mouth. “I’m sorry, I—”

She is not allowed to look like this while I’m apologizing—her lips rosy, her hair having abandoned its sloppy knot; is this a triumphant smile toying at her mouth?

“I’m—seventeen,” I say, stupidly, as if this is an excuse, or an explanation. Lily bursts into a fit of laughter. If she is embarrassed, or unhappy, she doesn’t let on.

I sit up, arms round her back. She quiets now, gathering her hair, reclipping it. Her breath is shallow, our faces close enough to touch. Though she must know it is dangerous—and perhaps this is why she does it—she wiggles her hips, just so, just slightly, settling into me more snugly, and yes, I feel this, yes, my cock feels this, and the clothing between us is suddenly insufferable, unbearable. She ropes her arms around my neck, sliding fingers into my hair.

_Is this Lily Evans? Top of our year? Hater of arrogance, deceit, cruelty? Saver of outcasts? On my lap? Teasing?_

It is. She whispers, “I’m seventeen, too, fancy that.” And kisses me, a slow thing, spreading her tongue on my lower lip, feeling, sucking on the upper lip. Her hips re-settle, and my throat contracts, a low, unwelcome moan emerging. Lily pulls back, lips hovering. “Something to say?”

I’m reeling. The sensation of her, the fact of her, the weight of her—it’s devastating. I take her lips back, a hand at her jaw, guiding her. She laughs against me. The movement leaves destruction in its wake. I’ve groaned again, louder. Now her hand has slipped between our bodies, and she’s cupping me through my pants, and I’ve choked on air, “ _fuck._ ” This is unexpected, the impact on my body unthinkable. I retreat from the kiss, unfocused.

This changes something in Lily’s demeanor almost instantaneously—she relaxes her grip on me, slouching backward, eyebrows sloping downward toward her nose. “Oh, I’m—I’m sorry.”

And in the next second she’s detached herself completely, her body gone, and she’s standing in front of me, bashful all of a sudden, the Lily from not a minute ago disappeared.

My body rejects this rejection. _Now you’ve done it, you sod_. “Lily, I didn’t mean—”

“I didn’t really think.” She isn’t meeting my eyes now. “That was—I’m sorry.”

My mind rushes to keep up. She’s apologizing why? For turning me on?

She’s thrust her face between her hands, rubbing them over her face, laughing awkwardly. “Oof.” She shakes out her hands. “Gods.”

Or has she finally noticed that _I’m_ the boy in her room, not someone else, someone she likes better?

“Lily,” I say, and I stand too, and I take her hands, the restless ones, in mine. “Um, you don’t need to be, er, sorry for that.” She looks up at me, with those pools of eyes. I will dive, given the chance. “On the contrary, um—I liked that.”

She bites her lip and laughs, shaking her head. “I just—” she rubs her lips together. “I don’t want you to think I’m just, er, using you, or anything.”

 _Please use me_. _Use me to death._

“It’s just, I’ve not been, well, it’s just to say that I—” she looks up at me and I want to kiss away the confusion from her face, get her back where we were. If there’s one thing we seem to be on the same page about its heat, and lips—and uncertainty. “I haven’t been so prepared, I guess, for how into, er, into you...I am.”

“Into me?”

“Alright, now wipe that stupid grin off you face, okay?” she shoves me playfully, but in the same second takes the grin into her own hands, and kisses me, sweet, long. I wrap my arms around her back and she sighs against my mouth.

“Lily?”

“Mhm?”

“One thing you should know is,” her kiss slows me. “You can touch me wherever you want, whenever you want.”

She emerges from me. Softly: “Alright.” Her teeth tug at her lower lip. She swivels us around, scoots down to the bed, lays back, pats the empty space beside her. I comply. We turn to our sides, align forehead to toe. Her hips are back on mine, leg hooked. The hard-on has endured, desperate.

 _Try very, very hard now, James, not to make a real mess of yourself_.

Lily, about to kiss me, just there—then, “can I ask you something?”

My fingers trace up her back. This fabric is nothing. _Is she attached to it? Can it be gone? What are we doing?_ “Sure, love.”

Her fingers are in my hair and it’s very distracting. Must she grip me like that? Her hips move a bit; she knows the effect of that. “How many girls have you been with?”

The real answer: _None that mattered, before now_. My real answer: “You mean, er, sexually?”

“Yeah.” She rests her head sideways on the bed.

I want to kiss every freckle on her face. “Two.”

“Hmm,” she muses, toying with my t-shirt, at my neck, down my chest. _Use me, Evans. Use me all over_.

I’m not sure what she’s looking to accomplish. Perhaps there are rumors she’s looking to confirm/ deny. “And you?”

She shakes her head. “Just the one.”

 _Owen Flannigan_. What I want to say: _I’ll do better than that prick._ What I say: “Lousy Quidditch player.”

“Lousy boyfriend.”

I kiss her; I can’t help it. I now have the unbearable thought in my head that she’s never been loved properly, and I am conceited and infatuated enough to think that I _can_ love her properly—or, at the very least, try.

Lily responds in kind, curling against me. I slide my hands from her back down to her arse, squeezing gently, and she likes this, I hear her whine a little, her lips fast on mine. Her hips press close.

_If I didn’t know any better, I’d say Lily Evans was positively randy._

She is also bossy—always bossy. She reaches for my hands, and removes them, and falls onto her back and is looking over at me.

_What is she up to?_

What she’s up to is guiding my hand straight down her shorts.

No kind of past experience could have prepared me for this: Lily’s eyes on mine, unfailing, as she places my fingers over her underwear. “Is this okay?”

She’s asking who— _me?_ My blood rushes. _Fuck_ do I want to make her feel good.

I lean in and kiss her, free hand moving to move the hair back from her face. Our hands still, below, at the point of no return. Then hers, the guide, leaves to frame my cheek, fingers gripping. “Better than okay,” I smile, kiss both of her cheeks.

My hand—down _Lily Evans’ pants_ —begins to move, gently. She blinks up at me. I kiss her neck; move my hand in circles, methodically. Lily’s breath quickens; she’s still staring. I’m here for whatever she needs. She needs my mouth, kisses between breaths. Her hips move to meet my touch, lifting, falling, unruly. An impatient groan. I take this as a cue—I slide my fingers under the band of her underwear, on the precipice.

She is wide eyes. I ask, “okay?”

“Okay,” she breathes. 

The fingers slip under and spread—Lily inhales sharply. Her hand moves to my bicep, grips. The pressure feels good. I reciprocate; my fingers, pressing, experimentally, moving downward. She’s wet.

_Fuck me._

Hips bucking up; she wants friction. My fingers move, responsive, and she is back at my mouth, kisses anxious now, shorter, till she breaks off into a high-pitched moan; I’ve slipped a finger inside.

Lily gasps. I kiss her neck to hide my smile. She can’t grip me hard enough now, hands roving from my arm to shoulder to neck to hair and back again, her legs unable to still against the delicious heat between. I add another finger; the motion quick now, intentional, my thumb pressing into a spot that each time elicits a groan. I want her to feel good, then better.

“ _James_ ,” my name is like cotton-candy from her tongue, sugar dissolving in my ear. She crumples into me, hips squirming, and something is building in her, I can tell, the breath at the side of my face hot, fast, and I try to give her the pressure she wants, thumb and fingers and palm coalescing in messy tandem until Lily elicits a breathless scream, her body wracked as if by a tidal wave; she pauses, midwave, midair, and then bucks into my hand, collapsing, breath rushing to keep up with the airless pause, a buzz emanating from her form onto mine.

I still, holding her, feeling her warmth. Slowly, I remove my fingers, palm, slip out of her underwear. She loosens her grip, slides back onto the bed. Her eyes are bright, looking over. She brings a hand to her forehead.

“You,” she says, planting a palm on my chest. I lean down, kiss the hand.

“Me?”

“You.”

I fall onto my back. Lily sits up on her elbow, looks down at me. My chest fills with a lightness I can only attach to the kiss she gives me. She pours the light into me, and I’m better for it.


	6. Chapter 6

_Lily_

“Lily?”

“Hmm.”

“Lily?”

“Hmm?”

“ _Lily?_ ”

I start from my thoughts, banging my ankle straight into the shopcart. “ _Shit,_ ” I hiss through my teeth, reaching down to caress said ankle.

“Oh, you okay, luv?” Mum is staring me down in blatant concern. She’s far too done up for a quick stop to the supermarket, with her winged eyeliner and full red lips. That being said—we both are, really, in pastel shift dresses and heels, having come straight from my cousin Sylvia’s bridal shower in Cokesworth.

“Yes, yes, sorry,” I set down a box of crisps in the cart and smile assuringly. Surely I can’t tell my mum I had zoned out completely thinking about _James Potter getting me off_. “Just a bit tired from Aunt Addy’s...you know.”

Mum rolls her eyes. “Got me how I put up with these women, Lilypad. We’ll only have the wedding now, and they’ll surely have champagne of some sort.”

I laugh. Mum was absolutely horrified to find the bridal shower dry of alcohol—dealing with her sister-in-law and her sister-in-law’s offspring was not something she was eager to do sober. “I think that’s a ceremony we’ll have to go to already nipped, if you ask me.”

Mum smiles, her concern for me forgotten. “Alright, just a few more things, I need pork, I need cheese, and I need grapes. Would you fetch the grapes, luv, and I’ll go on to the dairy?”

“Alright,” I nod, leaving her for the produce section. The supermarket isn’t large, a locally owned shop, and is fairly busy for a Sunday afternoon. Post-churchgoers swarm the aisles, chattering with acquaintances and family members. I navigate carts and produce displays till I find the grapes, bundles of red and green, and am considering which color to pick when I hear a voice behind me say, “fancy seeing you here.”

 _Of-fucking-course_.

It shouldn’t surprise me that the Potter’s might be among the swarm of afternoon shoppers. I turn and find James Potter, in the flesh, chewing at a smirk. Perhaps he’s just come from church himself, or some summery event. He’s all dolled up in a crisp white button-down, his hair slicked back slightly. _Devilishly handsome boy, innit he?_

My whole person has reacted to his presence beside me in the fruit aisles of a busy supermarket. I can’t not remember his fingers, pressed against me, all of me arching, the pleasure that followed.

But in spite of this reaction, I keep my tone even. “Afternoon, James.”

James tips an invisible hat, laughing. “Afternoon, Lily. Say, did you just get married?”

I am confused momentarily, but then look down and see that he’s indicating my white dress. It’s an old thing, one I’ve had since I was young—hardly bridal, save the color. But James is assessing my appearance in it, head to toe, and I’m immediately self-conscious, and very aware of my body, and very aware of just how aware _he_ is of my body.

Of course—can’t let on that his mere gaze affects me in such a way. “As a matter of fact I did,” I say, reaching past him to select a package of red grapes. I brush against him on the way, and when I’ve come up from the task we are much closer than before, and he’s smiling ravenously. Not two days ago, he set my whole body on fire—and, afterward, ate three slices of homemade fruitcake.

 _Was that the same world as this one_?

“And who’s the lucky bloke?” James’ eyes are sparkling at me and it’s all I can do not to drag him against my body and snog him full on in the middle of the supermarket.

“I think...” I say, hesitating suddenly because his hand has surreptitiously moved straight to my hip, hidden from view of shopgoers by the enormous bag of grapes. I swallow, hard, frozen by the touch. “His name was Henri, or maybe Jacques...something French.”

“French, huh?” James’ fingers are stroking against my dress now, and feel my breath still in my chest. “What’s a Frenchman doing wandering around Dedham?”

“Must have gotten really lost.” My voice has shrunken in my throat, because of his eyes, and his fingers, gentle, and the memory of everything I felt in the dim light of my bedroom—the kissing, and our hips, his focused attention. _You can touch me wherever you want, whenever you want._

 _Fucking fucking fuck_.

“It’s a shame, really,” James says, and his fingers fall away, and I want to cry out in protest—but that would hardly be appropriate, given the setting. He shoves his hands into his neatly tailored pants and shrugs. “But I wish you all the happiness in the world.”

For a second I’m speechless, because the only thing that would make me that happy is him.

 _Oh, for fuckssake, Lily Evans—you’re in a godforsaken supermarket. Pull yourself together_.

“Lils, you get lost?” Oh great, and here’s Mum to round it all off. “Oh, why—James! What a delightful surprise!”

I stand helplessly as Mum and James smile brightly at one another, and then his own Mum pops out from nowhere, and it’s a real reunion-type affair in the fruit section. I feel my face flush red, because through the entire interaction James stares me down, and the memory of it all is stamped across his face—and he knows I’m thinking of it, too.

As the caravan of mums and James and I jostles toward the checkout, I say, “Er, Mum, I’ll meet you down by the car, yeah?”  
  
“Sure, honey,” Mum says distractedly, much more interested in hearing Euphemia describe the roast she’s planning for dinner.

I grab James’ hand before he’s had the chance to ask me where we’re going and stalk out the entrance of the market. Round the side, caught between the shop building and the next, is a strip of unused concrete and a cluster of juniper bushes. I take us deep enough back that we won’t have a chance to be happened upon. Safe from prying eyes, I let go of James’ hand. He’s smiling at me in equal parts wonder and confusion as he sits halfway down on a concrete ledge next to the bushes.

I stand away from him, and suspend my arms behind my body, so I won’t be tempted to reach, or touch. “Can I ask you a question?”

“Sure, anything.”

 _Still grinning—what an idiot_. “If we had a duel, who do you think would win?”

James’ eyebrows concave near his nose. “A duel? Like a magic duel?”

“Yes,” I say impatiently.

He considers me oddly now, smile having fallen off. “What do you mean?”

“I mean, who would win?” I repeat, a bit exasperated. I think the question is perfectly clear, really. “Hypothetically. You and I, in a duel, both at full capacity of talent. Who would win?”

“Okay,” James humors me, slowly. “Is this a fight to the death?”

“No, just—someone gets bested, non-lethally.”

“Okay.” He looks off, considering my question for only a second. “You.”

“Me?”

He smiles at the echo from our last meeting—I push the feeling down. “Lily, you’re better at magic than anyone I know. You’re bounds above me.”

“No, that’s not true at all. You’re a just match—and much more technically skilled. You could beat me.”

“I’m skillful, sure,” he shrugs. “But I’ve got no ounce of your fire, really.”

“My _fire_?”

He nods, eyes boring into mine. “You’d have me tipped over in minutes.”

I can’t _not_ image him tipped over, right then, right there. _Fuck_.

And then he asks, “Are you planning on challenging me to a duel sometime soon?”

I exhale some misplaced frustration, leaning against the exterior of the shop. There’s something so intense in me that aches for James that I can’t explain, or reckon with. It’s eating away at me.

_Have I lost myself to him already? After just one sexual encounter? Can I survive him?_

I am filled with some fire, some fury—all wanting. He undoes me just by looking at me, unraveling. Trying to figure me out.

“I just—” I swallow, trying to articulate. “I don’t know if this is a good idea.” I motion between our bodies.

Several emotions fly across his face, until his features land on something like deflation, defeat. He drags his eyes to the ground.

I’m being completely honest. Whatever has sprouted inside of me, occupying my body, is screaming that this is _not_ a good idea. To pursue whatever is going on between us without a clear idea of where it’s going, or what it is.

But—an even larger part of me is saying _will you fuck clarity, for once in your life, Lily Evans? Go straight for the fire._

“But I _want_ it,” I say, quietly. James head bobs back up. I can’t read his eyes now. “It’s just—” I am struggling, but I have to get this out, in some way. “I’m overwhelmed by...er, everything I’m feeling, and I’m nervous I’m going to let it get away from me, but—” I feel a wash of what I’ve felt every time he’s touched me—gold light, yearning, the knot in my throat, tugging. “But I can’t stay away from you, that’s out of the question.”

James spreads his palms down his thighs—I try not to think of those same hands on me. His voice is soft. “Do you think I’m going to hurt you?”

I cut my head to the side, once, twice. “No.”

“Then what are you afraid of?” It’s not an accusation—it’s a genuine question.

 _Falling in love with you._ I shrug. “I don’t know.”

James’ fingers drum against his thighs now. Probably he thinks I’m daft, positively out of my mind. I’m a fucking mess.

“I’m sorry,” I say, shaking my head, helpless. “I don’t know how to say what I’m trying to say.”

“You don’t have to apologize,” James has risen off the concrete to approach me and all bets are off the second his frame surrounds me. Heart, body, soul—his, in an instant. “I don’t want you to do anything you don’t want to do, Lily. We can—it’s whatever you want. It’s on your terms.”

I look up into his face. He is so whole and bright, handing me the control. His sweetness is almost a worse effect than his physical appeal— _can I proceed without the fear that I haven’t_ already _fallen in love_?

I kiss him because I’m not sure what else to say, or how to say it, or if I should say it. It’s the sweetest thing I’ve ever felt. I feel my breath hollow through my throat, and I break from his mouth to sigh. This new feeling—him giving me the reins, giving me the power—is intoxicating and intimidating simultaneously. I kiss him again, deeper now, and find his tongue with mine, and then break away and groan, absolutely torn.

James steps back from me, runs a hand through his hair. “Is it me?” His tone has changed—he seems irritated now. “Is it because of me?”

“What?”

“Your—all your,” he waves his hand around nonsensically, unable to find the word. “It’s because of me, isn’t it? You don’t like that it’s _me_ you’re attracted to.”

 _Jesus Christ_. This is a flash of the arrogant, self-effacing James Potter I used to know. “No, James—it’s not you.”

“Then what?” He’s propped his hands on his hips like an angry mum—which would be a funny image in different context.

“It’s just,” I say, realizing there’s no turning away from this, I have to say it. “It’s just that I’m fully afraid once we start on, for real, I won’t be able to, er, stop.”

James’ eyebrows crowd near his nose.

“I mean, already I can’t get away from it. I’m reeling for you, I can’t stop thinking about you, it’s so much so fast. And, I mean, it’s _us_.” I’m telling the truth—it’s embarrassing, but it’s true. “I’m genuinely concerned that if we sleep together, we’re also going to kill each other.”

James barks a laugh. “What are you _talking_ about?”

“There’s always been something combustible between us, James,” I go on. “Back at school when we’d yell and fight, and then, now—well, you know. Combustible, still. It’s a little bit scary.”

He agrees—I see in his eyes. And there’s a reflection of something else there, something biting—the explosion, the aftermath, the ruins.

_Can we work past the threat of destruction?_

James rubs his lips together. He opens and closes his mouth several times, as if trying to decide what to say—or what not to say. He shakes his head at me, laughs, hangs his head. “You _will_ be the death of me, that I know.”

“James,” I say, helplessly.

He steps toward me, takes one of my hands, kisses the palm. Sighs. “Best not keep our Mum’s waiting any longer, eh?”

Then he turns and leaves. I swallow, overflowing with inexplicable, unexplainable feeling. I take a deep breath, then another.

I have to comport myself—I have to prepare for every future detonation.

***

James Potter’s childhood bedroom is small and unassuming, blue-walled, spotless. There’s a wooden desk and armoire; his broom leans against his school trunk in the corner. “You’re this organized at school?”

“Certainly not,” James laughs. He’s lounging on his bed, leaning back on his elbows. Far too relaxed. “Mum doesn’t live at school with me.”

I walk over to an east-facing window to look out at the Potter’s backyard. A swimming pool, a willow tree, a garden. The sun is going down, drenching the yard in golden light. At the back of my throat, the knot I almost forgot about. I shift, walking toward the armoire, run a finger aimlessly down its edge. I walk to the desk, trace my eyes over a small stack of books, reading their titles. His schoolbooks for seventh year. I swallow, trying to tame the knot.

I’m stalling for sure.

Our conversation from the other day, outside the supermarket, swirls in my head. My frustration, and longing, my confusion at the combination of the two— _and where did we leave things?_ “Lily and James: Combustible, Headed Straight for Ruin?” Was that it?

When James invited me over, I came without hesitation. Practically ran. But now, my stomach is in knots as well as my throat. I feel like I’m back at square one, nerves-wise. As if we’ve never kissed, as if he’s never— _fuck_.

“Lily, will you stop pacing?”

I stop, look over at him. “I’m anxious.”

“I can tell.” He pats the space next to him. “Let me help.”

I approach cautiously, sitting down on the bed. James reaches out, smooths his fingers back along my hair, tucks it behind my ear. He repeats the gesture on the other side, with his other hand.

“Here, sit up on the bed, facing this way,” he instructs, and I oblige. I cross my legs together, feeling as he shifts positions behind me, resting his back against the headboard, legs sliding to either side of my body. I inch back, lean into his chest. He brings all my hair behind my shoulders, the whole thick sheath of it, and begins working it into three distinct sections.

I smile when I realize what he’s doing. “Are you braiding my hair?”

“Shhh,” he insists. “Just relax.”

Still smiling, I close my eyes, letting myself be lulled by the gentle rhythm of his fingers folding my hair into a braid. The tension unwinds slowly from my body, my mind, replaced steadily by a pleasant thrum that starts in my scalp and winds down through every limb, tingling up and down my spine. I bring my hands to rest against his calves.

When James finishes the braid, he pushes it over my right shoulder. I feel him lean forward, into my body, and I scoot back to meet him. Then, his lips at the back of my neck. _Mmm_. My hands slide up to his knees. His fingers move down my shoulders and my back, circle my abdomen, slow. I feel the experience shifting. I relish in it, arching my back against him; he feels this between his legs, my bum nestling snuggly into his upper thighs, pushed against everything between.

A low groan from behind.

I turn my head, a hand moving up and back, round his neck, bringing his lips to mine. One of his hands slips under my shirt, edges my bra, lifts to flick over a nipple. I retreat from him, press a thumb to his lip. He maintains my eyes, brings his other hand up, fingers smooths over my other breast. I arch into his touch. “That’s nice,” is about the only comment I can give.

He engulfs my mouth again, tongue and all, and I’m reeling. I let go of his knees and scramble for the edges of my shirt. He releases me, amused, watching as I duck out of the garment, turn to face him. My bra is little more than a piece of cloth. Perhaps I wore this on purpose, knowing the satisfying way he would sit there, drink in the sight. I slide my thighs over his thighs, straddling. The braid he stitched has since come undone. Hair falls down around my ears; I brush it back, behind my shoulders.

When James looks up at me, I am taken aback, like some shot to my heart: it’s as though I’ve been shocked, wearing socks onto staticky carpet. I want him, yes, _all_ of him, but I also want this look in his eyes, forever, and I want him to hold me gently, afterward, and forever— _is this something I just have to get used to? Adoration?_

I plant my hands flat on his chest. We kiss delicately, as if trying not to break something fragile. Inside me: An ache, unearthed. It pulses between my ribs. James moves his fingers—warm—over my breasts, thumbs circling my nipples. I groan straight into his mouth. This calls for closer contact. I reach around to unhook my bra; it falls away and I toss it aside.

James retreats from my mouth to have a look at what has just transpired—he appraises my now-naked chest, eyes aglow, golden-brown, alive. “For _fuckssake_ —Lily Evans, topless? On my bed?”

I laugh. “And what are you going to do about it, huh?” My fingers skim up his neck, into his hair.

Though I know I should spend a healthy minute being self-conscious, I feel quite the opposite. James’ gaze warms me, propels my confidence upward and onward. I am floating on some self-righteous cloud—and it feels good. It feels right.

James does not tear his eyes from my breasts—he reaches out to touch them lightly, almost infuriatingly so. But I let him linger, stroking. It builds something within me, beneath the surface. It’s only when he leans forward, presses his lips to me, that I lose this control over my reactions. My fingers grip his hair, breath sighing out obnoxiously—his tongue lavishes with concentrated attention. This is a luxury I can’t say I’ve ever been spared, especially not at the hands of Owen. I experience a brand-new sensitivity as James shifts from one breast to the other, leaving his fingers to linger where his mouth vacated.

My underwear is beginning to feel very suffocating—I feel an acute need for him, a low, pooling heat.

_Fucking hell—he hasn’t taken off any of his own clothing and you’re already soaked, right on, Evans._

“Can you,” I breathe, not well-equipped for normal speech. “Can you take this off?”

I’m tugging at the hem of his shirt. I’ve done nothing to satisfy him, and I’m not want to sit around on his lap, receiving all the attention. James indulges my wish, lifting his face from my chest to shimmy out of his shirt. I take advantage of this moment to kiss him again, body melting into his; he feels so good. I slide a hand in between our bodies to see, up close and personal, just how aroused he is. Turns out: Very aroused. I push my palm against him, squeeze. He makes a sound somewhere in the back of his throat—deep, wanting.

Without straying from his mouth, I use my hands to undo his pants, unbuttoning, unzipping, until I can spread my fingers down, over his underwear, feel him closer. He grips his fingers to my hips, hanging on as I stroke. Still, I’m unsatisfied—I want to feel him in my hand, bare. I hook my fingers into the loops of his jean and pull till he gets the hint. He lifts his hips, momentarily, so I can slide his pants out from under him, down his legs.

I lean back onto my calves and regard him. My fingers tread lightly on his bare thighs. _What is this sparkling through me?_ The feeling is a bit like the first time I swam on my own: the strange weightlessness of a body moving through water, each limb heavy and light at the same time.

_Are we alive, or swimming closer and closer to death?_

I feel myself smiles. _Death take me. Death be damned._


	7. Chapter 7

7

_James_

Lily—Evans, brightest witch of her year—is maybe (definitely) about to get me off.

 _Evidence_ : She pushes me down onto the bed and pulls off my underwear, freeing my most sensitive body part straight from its prior confines. She considers my cock for a second—closely, brazenly, tongue pushing out of her mouth to roam her lower lip—before reaching out to fit her hand to the base and beginning a lazy, measured up-and-down pace.

My main thought? _Well—fuck._

Now that Lily quite literally holds my life in her hands and my mind is a categorically useless haze, any remaining ability to make cognizant decisions decreases by 25% every second that her hand is on me—and if this isn't enough to induce madness, I lose 75% capacity as her eyes flick up to mine, for only a moment, before ducks her head down to take me in her mouth.

I can count on one hand the number of times a girl has paid such intimate attention to this particularly intimate part of me. But there were none such as this girl, with this tongue, this hand, this mouth—weapons designed, surely, to bring me a slow and tortuous death.

My subconscious—in utter conceit—has always deemed this a very real possibility, given the number of dreams involving Lily sucking me off in various secluded areas around Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry.

The common denominator in all such dreams? I never last long.

I can’t let Lily linger. But I want to. But I _can’t_. _But fuck do I want to_. I tug gently on her shoulders, “Lily, _fuck_ , Lily, can you quit that—?”

She takes her sweet time coming up for air—tongue traveling my entire length on the way out, for good measure, fucking _fuck_ —but finally she raises her head toward mine, using her thumb to wipe at her bottom lip, eyes shaded some darker green now, cheeks bright.

_Does she have an ounce of an idea what she does to me?_

“Don’t like that?” she asks. Her hand, unlike her mouth, has _not_ vacated my cock, and I am still very much under threat of imminent explosion.

“Don’t—?” I laugh, though it sounds more like a choking groan. “I like it _too_ much.”

I kiss her, hard. Her hand on me is slow, purposeful. For an unhelpful moment I think _oh,_ _she’s done this before_ , which serves only to supply me with first a feeling of defiance, then jealousy, then, ultimately, superiority—whatever bloke was in her hand before, he’s not here now.

 _I’m_ here—and _by Merlin’s own blasted hard-on_ I am for sure going to come all over her hand in the _very near future_.

“Lily—” I am cut off once more by my own stupid self; this time a very whiny moan, embarrassing, unstoppable. “I’m going to...it’s going to be a right mess in a— _ooh_ —in a second—”

Lily brings herself flush against my body, hand doing its quick, efficient, devastating work, her lips and tongue trailing up my neck. Against my ear: “Well, go on then.”

Whatever kind of permission this is, my body obeys; a sharp spool of pleasure tearing through me, legs wracked by the spasm; and, when it’s all said and done, I shudder into her hand, unceremoniously, easily undone.

_Really well done, Potter. Took less than five minutes, honestly. Absolutely unbelievable._

Lily stills her fingers and leans back onto her thighs, gently, as if not to frighten me. Likely I look like an absolute wreck, chest heaving with breath, forehead stained in sweat, glasses slid halfway down my nose—though, I suppose, I can’t be expected to look any kind of normal the second after coming into the hands of a girl I’ve crushed on since I was barely a pre-teen.

 _Jesus sodding Christ_.

The world, as it were, feels as if it’s spinning off its axis.

“Er, James,” Lily says, delicately. “Do you have a tissue, maybe, or a towel, er, that I could use, just a jot?”

“Yeah, yeah, sorry,” I say quickly, immediately embarrassed to not be thinking of that myself. I drag my body to the edge of the bed and rifle through my bedside table till I find a packet of tissues. I hand one back to her, using another to fix my own mess.

“Thanks,” she says. When I turn back she seems a bit bashful, all of a sudden, despite what’s she’s done to me, despite what she’s _doing_ to me, just sitting there, topless, with the most perfect breasts in the world. I take her tissue and toss it aside. She swings her legs round the edge of the bed. Thighs aligned side-by-side. I swallow, clear my throat. “I’d like to offer my sincerest gratitude,” I tell her. “For what you’ve done.”

Lily laughs, and it’s like a shower of light. “Well, no thanks necessary, but you’re quite welcome.”

I take her hand, her tactful, lovely hand. If I was braver—or stupider—I might propose to her right here, right now. Surely I’m not that imbecilic—but I know one thing: That I’ll never be as happy as I when I’m with her.

_Is this real? Am I to wake at any moment, strapped to a bed, realize these are visions of a man ravaged by madness?_

The realness of the situation makes itself quite known immediately: There’s a soft knock at my door, and Mum’s quiet voice calling out, “James, darling? Asleep?”

Lily’s eyes are immediately panicked. I smile at her reassuringly, mouth the word _locked._

Mum waits a moment, listening for an answer, then retreats when she gets none, her footsteps fading down the hall. I see Lily take a deep, relieved breath. “She keen on tucking you in?”

It’s my turn to laugh. I turn her hand over and run my fingers along its planes. “She’s keen on being nosy and never leaving me alone, more like it.”

Lily smiles a small smile, then sighs. “I guess I should probably go.”

I don’t want her to—I want her to stay, forever, and then some. But she’s already given me so much, and it would be selfish to ask for more. “Okay.”

She must catch the hint of regret I try to keep out of my voice, because she’s leaned forward to kiss me. I relax into her fully, slowing the kiss. Maybe my tongue can persuade.

It’s almost effective—she blinks away from my mouth, inhaling sharply. “Dangerous,” she muses quietly.

 _Super fucking dangerous_. _Those lips—those eyes—those tits, holy hell._

I watch—still fully naked, I realize—as she slides off my bed, gathers her bra and shirt from my bedroom floor and puts them back on. When she’s clothed, she moves to retrieve her sandals from next to my door. She looks back at me. I see something pass across her face, lingering in her eyes, lips rubbing together.

“I’ve got to be careful,” she admits.

I raise my eyebrows. “Careful?”

She shakes her head incredulously. “You’re—” Her hands suddenly restless, unable to settle at her brow, her hip, her neck. I watch her throat as she swallows, hard. “You’re very fit, yeah? You _know_ you look good.”

It’s like I’ll burst with the effect these words have on me. Glowing light. A smile—ridiculous, pompous, goading—eats at my lips. “And how’s that, Lily?”

This war she is fighting with herself is nothing if not amusing. I certainly don’t help the cause by continuing to sit here, naked. I lean back on my elbows, cross my ankles.

She shakes her head again, furiously. “Oh, fuck you, Potter.”

I’m sure didn’t _intend_ for such a comment to set me off further, but the lack of loathing in her voice—I sense the opposite, in fact—just makes me grin harder. “Sure you’d like to, Evans.”

I see her chest hitch with sudden breath—and that’s all the answer I need to know that I’m right.

“Good _night_.”

“Sweetest of dreams, Lily.”

***

_Lily_

From my vantage point in the plush pink armchair, I eye the green-satin capri-and-top combo Mum is sporting. She makes a turn when she reaches the three-way floor-length mirror, examining the outfit from all angles. “This might be it, all, what do we think?”

“You’ve looked lovely in it all Mum, really,” I shake my head, smiling. “But that’s just smashing.”

“Dunno why you’re so focused on what you’re wearing,” Dad intones. He’s flopped across the bed, arms folded behind his head. “Just a garden party, Ruthie.”

“Roger, honestly,” Mum muses, distracted. She’s pulling a white hair scarf up through her curls. “Alright, this is really it! We’re ready?”

“ _We’ve_ been ready for ages.”

Mum turns to me as I rise from the chair, holding out her hands to take mine. “Lilypad, look at you. I can’t believe how grown you are.”

“ _Mum_ ,” I groan as she forces me to do a twirl. For all the grief I gave her about getting ready, I put just as much (if not more) thought into my own outfit. I settled on a flippy white-and-green flowered skirt and tank duo, my hair hanging down my back in waves, my earrings gold and heart-shaped, tiny. Overall—a rather flirty ensemble.

_And whomst are you planning on flirting with at said garden party?_

I swallow. It has, really, truly, undoubtedly, unexpectedly, inevitably come to this: The Evans family attending a garden party hosted by generous and hospitable neighbors Fleamont and Euphemia Potter.

And, of course, the son with whom I am— _dare I say it?—_ entangled.

Dad folds himself up from the bed and raises his eyebrows at Mum and I. “Shall we, Evans’?”

***

We arrive to find the Potter’s backyard decked out in clusters of white-wicker chairs and tables, vases of understated white hydrangeas gracing each set. A small tent draped in white curtains is set up adjacent to the little garden, inside it tables filled with food and drink. The high afternoon sun oversees thirty-or-so guests already on the scene, gathered together chatting and laughing in small circles, decked out in all manner of garden party finery. Simply based on attire, I can tell almost immediately that the majority of the partygoers are magical—in fact, upon closer inspection, I begin to realize that likely my parents are the _only_ muggles at this party—something I hadn’t even thought to consider.

Before I can find myself anxious over the epiphany, Euphemia has spotted us and cries out in excitement, pulling Fleamont by the crook of his elbow away from the guests with which they were mingling. There’s a flurry as Mum and Euphemia embrace and exclaim out loud about one another’s getup, and then Mum introduces herself to Fleamont, and introduces Dad to both of the Potter’s.

“Ah, a pleasure to meet you, Rodger,” Fleamont says, beaming as he clutches Dad’s hand firmly, using his other hand to guide him toward the refreshment tent. “Can I show you to the drink area? You look like a whiskey man. Are you a whiskey man, Rodger?”

“Lily, you’re a _picture_!” Euphemia is gushing at me now, clutching her hands together as if in rapture.

“Thanks so much for inviting us, Mrs. Potter.”

“Lily, it’s Euphemia, honestly,” she scolds. “James is somewhere over there, sweetheart, he’s been holed up in conversation with sweet Tula for Merlin knows how long.” She winks at me, looping her arm through Mum’s and turning the conversation to _her_ gorgeous outfit.

I turn, lacing my hands behind my back. I scan the tiny groups of people till I find the pair I am looking for. James is engaged in what appears to be a very intense conversation with an older woman about two-thirds his height. The woman—Tula—has his arm in what looks to be a positive death-grip, and I can tell from James’ stooped demeanor and the crease between his brow that he’s been in this unsavory position for a while, and wants out. 

Before I can even consider a way to get him out of this situation, or even just get his attention, he looks up and spots me. The smile that consumes his face sends a spasm of warmth through me so unexpected that I have to breathe in very deeply to get a hold of myself. From across the distance, I mouth, _hi_.

He looks pained now, glancing down at his companion, who doesn’t look like she plans on letting go of his arm within the hour—possibly ever. James leans against her ear and says something to which she nods, eagerly. I watch as he walks her—slowly, diligently—to a table with an empty seat and helps her sit. Then he rushes to the tent and fills a plate with snacks and a cup with some liquid, bringing it back over to Tula, who looks immensely grateful—so grateful that she nearly topples from her chair planting a messy kiss on his cheek.

I bite my tongue to hold back laughter.

James has turned and is striding towards me. My heart is like _woah there he comes_.

_Alright, everybody calm down now._

Though I can’t really be calm, because he’s wearing a gorgeously green button-down shirt made of loose, comfortable-looking fabric, maybe linen. The top three buttons are rather irresponsibly unbuttoned, leaving a triangle of chest out for all the world to see.

When he reaches me I’ve already lost a few breaths over the shirt, over the triangle of chest, over his floppy summer hair. “Hullo,” he says, seeming a bit out of breath himself.

“Aren’t you going to introduce me to your girlfriend?”

“Tula truly _wishes_ ,” James rolls his eyes. “She’s an old teacher of Mum’s, really clingy woman, can barely get away from her when she’s about.”

“She’s rather persistent,” I laugh. “Surprised she didn’t slip you the tongue with that display just now.”

“Really isn’t the one I’m interested in slipping me the tongue, you see.”

_Now he’s got to go and say something like that just now, doesn’t he?_

And I would do it, right here, if it weren’t for the party around us, or my parents somewhere in near proximity, or Tula over there with her plate of snacks and penchant for young men. Good time for me to become aware of my desire spiking, acutely, just from the way James’ eyes linger on me, sparkling. The need is very suddenly quite potent, almost abhorrently so. I’m not sure exactly where’s it come from, except that I do know—I know _perfectly well_ —that it’s been there all along.

I don’t get the chance to interrogate this desire, for there’s a voice to my right—“Didn’t count on me getting an invite to this gig, did you, J?”

I turn to find a tall, lanky man with James’ same shade of hair and same haughty smile on his lips.

I look back to see James’ face relax in recognition. “You sod, really, who let you in?” He laughs and steps forward to embrace the man, who _must_ be related to him. I see the resemblance not only in hair color and smile but in the shape of the nose—though this man’s face is much longer than James’, as is his stature in general. Where James carries his strength in his arms and legs, this Finn is much wirier in frame.

James emerges from the hug and glances back at me. “Oh, er, Finn, this is Lily Evans—she’s a, um, classmate,” his eyes avoid mine as he says this, no doubt a bit panicked about the strangeness of his introduction. “Lily, this is Finn Ryan, a cousin from Mum’s side.”

I offer a hand in greeting. “Nice to meet you, Finn.”

“The feeling’s mutual,” Finn murmurs, ignoring my offer, instead taking my hand and kissing it. He holds my eyes steady, winks. “Smashing, Lily Evans.”

Finn releases my hand. I feel James’ discomfort almost radiating off his body; I barely have to glance over to see his jaw twitch, slightly, as though he’s gritting his teeth.

_Jealous much, Potter?_

“James, love?” That’s his Mum now, hollering over from the refreshments tent. “Darling, I could use your help, if you would!”

James shoots a painful look of reluctant between Finn and I. “I’ll be back,” he says, hesitantly. _Does he think us likely to get good and engaged while he’s gone?_

I want to say: “Really, James, who was I giving a handjob to just the other night: You or him?”

I say no such thing. I hold my tongue. Finn waves James off with a hand. “I’ll take care of her, J. Run along.”

I look at James and try to smile encouragingly. He doesn’t smile back before heading over toward his mum.

Finn turns toward me, stuffs his hand into his pockets. His eyes on me are appraising, intense. “So you’re at Hogwarts with James, then?”

“Yeah,” I respond. “And you—forgive me, are you at Hogwarts? If you are, you must be much older than me and Slytherin.”

Finn chuckles. “No, no, I am much older, but certainly not Slytherin. Can you imagine? James would never speak to me.”

“But you were at Hogwarts, then?”

“Yes, for three years, Gryffindor through and through,” Finn says, placing a hand over his heart. “But then I transferred to Castelobruxo on exchange, so I could study Magizoology.”

“Really?” My interest in James’ older cousin sparks absolutely. “I only knew one girl who applied to the program, she was a few years above me, in Ravenclaw, but I’ve never heard of anyone getting in! How was it? Was it just fantastic?”

“Bloody hell it was,” Finn smiles largely. “Best thing I ever did. Got me a straight path to uni, too, which was well appreciated. Although,” he sobers. “Rather a shame I left Hogwarts before I could cross paths with such lovely younger witches.”

I feel the blush like a sting. To my immense relief, I’m spared the folly of thinking of something to say to this, as James has flown right back to our sides, gone barely two minutes. He’s looking frantically between Finn and I, perhaps noticing the red staining my cheeks, Finn’s intense eyes. “This guy, uh, bothering you?” he says to me, absolutely frazzled.

“No,” I say. “He’s just telling me about his exchange in Castelobruxo.”

“No doubt fascinating stuff, uh, but Lily, would you—? Would you mind helping me with something in the kitchen?”

I crease my brows together. “Well, sure.”

“Finn, we’ll catch up later on league business?” he claps his cousin on the back, and Finn returns the favor.

“Will do, mate.”

“Lily?” James says, anxiously, as he turns toward the house, waiting for me to follow.

“Pleased to meet you, Finn,” I say, apologetically.

His smile is dazzling, pointed. “I’ll see you around, Lily Evans.”

I follow James over the backyard and through a sliding door into the house. His movements seem jolted, erratic; he hasn’t stopped running a hand through his hair. Once we’re in the kitchen, I ask, “Alright?”

Of course, I know damn well why he’s acting this way—and I can’t tell if the jealously upsets or thrills me.

He turns to face me, hand running through hair. “Yeah, I’m fine.”

“Really?” I lean back against a counter. “Nothing bothering you, at all?”

He regards me carefully. “Seems like you were getting along real well with Finn, is all.”

“Ah,” I smile. “It’s that you’re concerned about?”

“Not _concerned_ , no.”

“Furious, then?”

“He can—” James cuts himself off, visibly frustrated.

I try not to laugh— _am I being mean?_ “He’s a charming bloke. Really lovely way about him.”

“He’s—” James looks a bit like he wants to punch a wall.

“Say, James, are you _jealous_ of him?”

This is apparently his tipping point: James rushes towards me in all of a second, puts an arm on either side of the counter behind me. I inhale a bit, sharply, adjust to his sudden closeness.

“You tell me, Lily, if I should be jealous of him.”

Whatever part of this “threat” has felt real for James—no matter how ridiculous the idea is—I’m immediately humbled. As if this _cousin_ could make me feel like this, suddenly empty of breath, of thought, of anything but a slow, glowing buzz. I wind my arms around his neck, slowly, till there’s no space between, and my mouth is free to find his, gentle. _Is a kiss enough to convince?_

James relaxes against me. I feel his relief like a basin must feel when filled with cool water. I slip him the tongue he wanted earlier; measured, affectionate. I pause, find his eyes.

“Why don’t you come over to mine tonight, and I’ll give you an answer?”


	8. Chapter 8

_Lily_

One lie I tell myself: I can ignore the _everything else._

I tell myself the lie as I sit on my bed waiting for James, a half-finished copy of _Transmorgify This: An All-You-Need-To-Know Guide to Mid-Level Transfiguration_ in hand, which, despite my best efforts to concentrate, is more or less forgotten. I returned home from the Potter’s slightly tipsy on a combination of having been superstitiously gifted at least two tripleberry mojitos from Euphemia and superstitiously gifted several kisses from James—but once the effect of the drinks and the kisses wore off, I struggled for a good twenty minutes (for the second time in one day) on what kind of outfit I ought to be wearing when I let James back into my room.

Eventually, I settled on a silky maroon tank and shorts set, a never-worn gift from Marlene I’m-a-Huge-Fan-Of-Sexy-Pajamas-And-So-Ought-You-Be McKinnon. I brushed my teeth, called a fake goodnight to Mum and Dad down the hall, then proceeded to pace about my room restlessly for a bit, shaking out my hands, thinking for the millionth time if I was not quite well in the head. 

It’s the _everything else_ that’s bothering me. The _what lays beyond_. The _what happens after_.

The worry congeals in my throat, knotting. I swallow past it. I close _Transmorgify This_ , giving up entirely. Something I do know: It’s halfway through July, just a month and half remaining till school begins. Another thing I know: James Potter has a hold on me, whether I like it out not—whether I know how far that will go, or not.

The _everything else_? That can wait.

I take a long lungful of air. I sit up from my bed, rush to the mirror. I brush out my hair a few times, pinch some color into my cheeks, slash a bit of balm onto my lips. I examine Marlene’s gift and decide the set looks rather nice—my breasts on pleasant display, the deep crimson color a pretty contrast to my pale skin. “Not bad, Evans,” I murmur, only to be shocked nearly out my skin by a frenzied tapping at the window. I whip my head around to find a dark shape hovering—flapping, more like it—outside. Puzzled, I rush over to lift up the window. In flies an owl.

It’s a gorgeous bird, brown-and-white-feathered, golden eyes alert in new surroundings. It nestles tentatively on my windowsill, fluffing its wings.

“Well, hello there,” I say, for lack of better words. I notice a letter clutched between its talons, and gesture toward it. “May I?”

The owl regarding me curiously, then twitches its head downward, which I suspect this is the closest to a _yes_ I will be getting. I reach for the letter. The second its task is complete, the owl flies back out the window and into the night. I flip open the letter and read the hasty scrawl inside:

_lily—bit odd, I realize, sending up Reginald when I’m at your front door, but I figured your parents would be sleeping and was sure they wouldn’t appreciate being awoken by the doorbell. help a lad out? james_

***

_James_

“I’m sorry I’m late,” I say immediately, in a hushed tone, when Lily opens the door.

She just smiles, grabs my hand, lets me in. She locks the door. I’m content to be led through the dark sitting room, up the stairs, past Petunia’s vacant bedroom and into Lily’s. Content to watch her turn toward me, cheeks colored nearly the same shade as her perilously sparse outfit, fingers still in mine.

The real peril is, of course, my reaction to the situation— mind, body, and heart alike.

“Someone felt very proud of being Gryffindor tonight,” I murmur, brushing a finger over the strap of her silky top.

Lily shivers beneath my touch. “Always looking for some of that infamous courage.” As if to emphasize her point, she moves forward, pushes me against the door, and kisses me like the Gryffindor she is: full of fire, insistence, and something like triumph. I wrap my arms around her, the silky fabric of her top lifting and giving way beneath my fingers. She is warm, eager—perfect. Her fingers tangle in my hair, tug. Her hips circle against mine; I inhale, sharp. “The _nerve_ ,” I growl, and she smirks, rotating again, then again. There is no stopping my groaning, no stopping the burgeoning reaction between my legs.

_Here he goes again, overeager fool. Let’s not embarrass ourselves this time, eh?_

Determined to reciprocate, I slip my fingers down to round her arse, glossy shorts riding up at my touch; Lily huffs away from my mouth, brow tense. I smirk, her breath short in my face. To test the waters, I squeeze, tentative, drawing her hips against me on my own time. “The _nerve_ ,” Lily whines into my throat, cheek lolling against my chest.

I’m filled unexpectedly with adoration so bursting and painful that I have to shut my eyes against it. Alongside it, aching, potent—a sadness.

Lily presses her lips to the edge of my jaw, her fingers crinkling in my shirt.

  
The sadness—fleeting, miniscule—slithers back where it came from.

***

_Lily_

One lie I have to keep telling myself: I can ignore the _everything else._

James swivels from the door and takes me and the heat pulsing between our bodies to the bed. I hassle at his shirt and he removes it, doing the same with his shorts. Nearly naked, James looks at me, long, his breath heavy from above.

“Hmm?” I wonder, spreading my fingers softly over his collarbone.

He brushes the hair back from my temple. His eyes are like the lighthouse, and I the storm-ravaged ship. Strong light. “You’re so beautiful,” he says, simply.

The _everything else_ screams down at me, relentless.

Humbled, impatient, avoiding, I yank him back to me, body crashing down. His mouth on my breast through silk, hot breath, teeth tugging gently. _Everything else can wait, doesn’t matter now_. His fingers sliding past the waistband of my shorts, pressing, wanting. _When the time comes, we’ll have to think about it, talk about it—but for now, this is fine, this is good_. His body beneath mine as I wrestle my way on top, his chest hair deliciously rough against my top in all its disarray, the friction of hips, jolting.

_It’s okay now to see the line, and ignore the line._

Another lie I tell myself: I’m not scared to death of what waits on the other side of that line.

I catch James’ hand and pull it from between my legs. I catch the other at my hip. I lace our hands together, place them on the pillow under his head, bracket his face with our fingers. He looks up at me, breath coming out in long, slow intervals.

His eyes say, _do with me what you will._

I swallow past the knot in my throat. The line, in the distance, unwelcome, shimmers.

I lean forward to kiss him. He is just a helpless mouth, an eager tongue. If he is urgent for something else he offers no complaint; offers only submission. I press my luck by sliding my full weight onto him, bearing down on his body like a tidal wave, mouth slipping from mouth to cheek to jaw to neck to collarbone. His chest rattles with breath, a miniscule earthquake. I smile. Press a kiss, gentle, to the center of his throat. I feel his legs shifting, as if he is ready to run.

I squeeze his hands. He squeezes back. Nonverbal magic.

My hips press and the response—a groan, low, wanting—is immediate. I unfold and sit upright, peel my hands away. My skin feels hot all over with his eyes, wandering. He props himself onto his elbows. I feel suddenly that if I just stayed like this, and he touched me, just once, I would fall right apart.

_Silly thought to have, Lily Evans—are you really so fragile?_

Perhaps—I am, for him.

My body rolls off. On my back, I turn my head to the side to see his face again. A face full of trust and longing. I’m aware that he’s never seen me _fully_ naked—but I only let myself hesitate for second before I take off my top, then reach down to pull off and discard my shorts. 

Maybe I shouldn’t have slowed this part down. I’m not ready for the look he sweeps over me, the care in his eyes, the something desperate in his brow. His hand is gentle when it curves along at hip, his knee parting my legs as he pulls me against his chest, an arm wrapped around my back.

Tenderness is far too dangerous. I bruise our lips together, grappling him closer, hands reaching for shoulder and neck. Lungs heave for air. Something is stuck in my ribs, pulsing, painful, excruciating. Need? Fear? Euphoria? Something like all three, vibrating.

James moves over me and I am grateful for the weight. He whispers kisses down my neck and chest until—finally—he reaches my breasts, and I whimper, fingers splaying his hair, as his mouth opens, closes, sucks. His attentions are concentrated, lethargic; he seems determined not to give one breast specific preference over the other. The result is my insides melting and threatening to ooze straight out of my body, my hips bucking petulantly into his groin. I repeat the movement several times, until it gets a rise out of him—well, several rises.

“Unfair, you are,” he mumbles between my breasts. “Horribly persistent Gryffindor.”

In lieu of a response, I wrap a leg around his waist, push my hips upward, harder.

James emerges from my chest, groaning. I take his moment of distraction to grab his face between my hands: I need his mouth on mine, and I need it now. “Perhaps you— _oh_ ,” I’m cut off by his tongue. “Perhaps you ought to start showing some of that infamous Gryffindor chivalry.”

***

_James_

The only thing standing between me and chivalry is a pair of underwear. 

I gently snake my arms out from under Lily so I can skim away the final barrier. When I come back, fully naked, her eyes are luminous on mine.

In perhaps my first full moment of clarity yet this evening, I realize that truly, honestly, actually—I am about to full-on have sex with Lily Evans.

_Fucking hell._

“Um, Lily?”

“Yeah,” she allows, wrapping her arms around my back, pulling me close, till our naked upper halves are glued together.

“Do we need some kind of, er—”

She retreats from me, smiles. “Protection?”

I nod, swallowing.

“Good for you,” she says, “that I’m on a contraceptive charm.”

We’re looking at each other like two kids about to jump off a dock, not knowing exactly how deep the water below will be. This is how I always feel around Lily, just amplified: Life-or-death exaltation on varying levels. I want to swim to the edge with her, swim for days on end.

At this point, anyway, no matter what’s in the water—I know I’m already drowning.

“But you’re—” suddenly a gentle concern threads her features. “You’re alright with this?”

“Gods yes,” I say quickly.

“Good.” Lily presses her back against the bed. “Then go ahead and shag me, Potter.”

I take a moment—given the gravity of the situation (me about to shag Lily Evans, and all)—to place a gentle kiss on her neck, lingering in the idea that she _wants_ me, liking the feel of her hands on my lower back, gripping. I close my eyes.

In my ear, an indignant huff of breath: “Well, are you going to do it, or shall I find someone else?”

I have no choice: I am hers.

I emerge from her neck and kiss her languidly, adoringly. A hand skims downward, presses into the nest of curls between her legs. Lily moans. This sound could drive me straight underwater—were I not already there.

Her hands are fervent on my back, running up and down, flitting across my arse, flying to my shoulder blades. Fingers slip; find her welcome warmth. She tilts against my hand. “James,” she moans. “Please.”

I watch her face contort in pleasure. I could watch her forever. _Could I ever let her go?_

My lips brush over hers, breathing, “where do you want me?”

***

_Lily_

I have no words to answer; only a hand curving his cock, urging his hips down on mine. James adjusts in kind, following where I lead, my thighs opening gently to accommodate.

There is no time to panic, but there is a fizzle of panic in my throat—it’s the knot, tightening. I strain to remember the last time Owen and I had sex, and can summon only a hazy feeling of disappointment, an ill-lit broom closet, a hasty clean-up. The pleasure received from him had mostly been thanks to the novelty of sex, the newness. Mostly I got myself off, after, trying to remember the good parts while lying in bed by myself. 

But with James—thus far, a wildly different story. I get more feeling from just a kiss than Owen could elicit with his cock shoved inside of me.

_What the fuck is going to happen when James’ cock is inside of me?_

“Alright, Evans?”

My face must be a map of my thoughts. I swallow my apprehension, swipe a thumb over his lips. “Yes.”

My hand, still curved, leads where I want him most. The first soft encounter of flesh on flesh proves overwhelming, a sting bolting through me. “Yes,” I murmur again, craning my neck for his lips. My fingers squeeze at his lower back encouragingly. His hips move forward, slowly, devastatingly slow, until he pushes just inside. I am tender; but the strain feels good, and I want him to go further. “ _Please_ , James,” I reiterate, and he smiles against my jaw, tilting in until there’s nothing left to fill and I gasp with the sensation of all of him; my cunt rather pleased with this stretching, tiny pinpricks sparkling down my spine, my body warming inexorably.

James begins the dance slowly. The sluggish pace might annoy me more if it didn’t feel so very good, my hips straining upward to meet his movements. Unfair are the lips on my lips with their quick and perfunctory kisses, holding back the tongue I want to tangle in my own, suck on. He is performing for me now, I can tell, with warm skin on warm skin, cock sliding in and out in even measures, lips dotting my cheeks and brow. He’s bragging, in a way, his body telling me _I’m in charge of these sensations—what are you going to do about it?_

The game he plays—while excruciating in its winnings, all the thrilling starbursts of sensation shuddering through me, the quickening breath in my lungs, the strangled sounds torn from my throat—is infuriating. Uncalled for. A gross and targeted attack.

And now he sees fit to bring his fingers to the place where our bodies meet, press down into me, igniting a pleasure so electric that my hips jolt into his palm of their own accord. His smile—pretentious, knowing—is the final straw.

I grip the back of his neck in my hands and tug at his lower lip with my teeth, trying to prove some kind of point to his lips and all their wetness and heat and stupid knowing smiles. How dare he—with his magic hand, his slow-on-me-hips—tease at the pull and simmer of my body’s impending peak, buried beneath his unhurried attentions.

This absolutely will not stand.

***

_James_

The sensation of Lily—cunt clenching around me, body warming and pliant, breath hitching at each thrust—is world-ending: Every facet of my physical existence ablaze in an ecstasy irrefutably singular from any I’ve ever felt before.

But Lily is irritated with me, fed up with my slow pace. She craves the upper hand—I can tell in her sudden and indignant claiming of my lips, teeth, tongue, her hips and their brutal participation, bucking erratically to meet the winding undulations of my cock, all the soft impatient sounds bubbling up through her chest, her fingernails digging into the bones of my shoulders.

What a selfish pleasure it will be to relinquish control—to give over to her completely.

_Use me, Evans. Use me all over._

***

_Lily_

I enlist all my strength—hands at his shoulders, hips clenched on his hips, a fiery, crumbling, doomsday _need_ to be in charge—and push James off of me and onto his side.

He is grinning at me wildly, despite our separation. “Lily? Something I can help with?”

I take momentary thrill in how strangled and raspy his voice comes out, despite a clear effort for even tone. I take another thrill in the sight of his flushed skin, disheveled hair, sweaty, dripping length—before recouping my objective: “Be a dear and sit up for me, just there, against the headboard?”

He seems all too enthused to obey, scrambling upright and leaning back. I am tempted to torture him in the manner he tortured me—but the frenzied, aching brightness between my legs begs otherwise. I join James at the headboard, spreading my knees on either side of him and anchoring my hands on his shoulders. The crazy grin is still on his face—somehow, he’s managed to keep his glasses on. He watches intently as I run a finger along one edge before taking them off entirely, leaning over to place them on my bedside table.

“Can you see?” I wonder.

Hands ghost over my thighs, up my middle, over my breasts; eyes follow fingers. I shiver under the touch. His head falls back against the headboard, throat contracting as he swallows.

“I can see what matters.”

***

_James_

What matters is the way she bites her lip, bites at a smile—the way her hair falls around me in waves as she leans in—the way she kisses me, consumes me—the way her movement exasperates contact between our lower halves—lately so intimately acquainted—and the memory of that feeling is too much to stand without feeling it again, and soon, and I know Lily agrees because she’s sitting up, rubbing the full length of me once for good measure (for swift torture) before easing right down onto me.

“ _Fucking hell_ ,” leaves my mouth in an arduous breath—this attachment might allow Lily power over leverage and pace, but the sensation I am allowed in return can only be described as apocalyptic.

Things will burn down in the wake of this feeling.

_So help me Merlin—bring it on._

My hands reach for her thighs, holding on for dear life. Lily rocks her hips against me, her forehead lolling against mine, her eyes fluttering shut, a low whine snaking out of her lips. I lean up to taste this contentment. Our lips tangle and slope recklessly, trying to catch up with the urgency of her hips. She can’t seem to keep her hands anywhere for more than a moment; knotted in my hair, palm-down on my chest, rolling her nipple between fingers, guiding my hand down to her dewy apex, pressing.

Her moans are uninhibited now, chaotic, loud, and I watch in amazement as she enters a realm of unselfconscious abandon, her body driving her now, not reason. I sit stupidly and whimper, potently aware of how very close to the edge I am, her name spilling from my lips like a litany, using whatever focus I have left inside my foggy _oh my god Lily Evans is fucking me_ brain to watch as she approaches her own unraveling, which seems just as close as mine, suddenly, her hips lifting up off of me then sinking down quickly, ferociously, the friction changed now, increased beyond compare—and I can only assist with my palms on her arse, spreading to allow her this speed, my tongue and teeth latching onto her breast, sucking at her neck—her breath, like mine, is caught in her throat, seeming insufficient given all the chaotic movement and sensation; and she sobs at my neck, begging for release like a prayer—until she gets exactly what she wants, thighs squeezing unconsciously, cunt clenching around my cock, spasmodically—she gasps into my ear—“ _James!”_ —and the breath and the sob and the clench and the pause and the gasp and my name in her mouth prove fatal, my own bright end unspooling as her hips rotate once, twice, three times more: And what is this feeling—if not something holy?

Her body sanctifies mine. My heart is in my throat. She stills, forehead pressed to mine. 

***

_Lily_

I force breath into my body, heaving, unable to tear my eyes from his—those dark, golden, wanting shadows. I am awash in unearthly feeling. I clutch at James’ face, thighs shuddering beneath his fingers, almost unbelieving of the sensation that claims me, the tumultuous end I reached. He strokes softly, calmly, and it centers me in the aftermath of that natural disaster—the one affecting only the square footage of our two bodies. The lightening left me tingling, sensitive to even a deep breath. Goosebumps pucker underneath his fingers; and I kiss him, I have to—because I don’t know what else to do with the tumult inside of me, and I want to thank him, maybe, or scream at him, or fuck him, again—mostly, I want him to know what I’m feeling.

Our lips are lazy and careful. I pull away and just stare at him. He looks younger without his glasses, but still handsome, and now—well, he looks fucked. He looks—sated.

With care, I ease myself off of him. I inhale as his cock brushes over me on the way out—still sensitive from the ordeal, the lightning, the storm. I fall to the side, lethargic all of a sudden, heavy with the aftermath of such intense physical pleasure. James shifts himself to face me, propping up his head on his elbow. “Are you going to say something, or shall I?”

I laugh, and I have to kiss him again, just once, lingering. “Well, if I told you to say something, what would it be?”

He runs his eyes over my face. “I would say that I think you’re unbelievable, and I’m having a hard time coming to terms with what just happened.”

“But you—” I pause, suddenly self-conscious. “You enjoyed yourself?”

“Lily, _fuck_ ,” he laughs now, running a hand up my back, through my hair. “Are you serious?”

“It’s just, I’ve only ever—well, er, it’s just, Owen was never very—”

“Lily,” James says, very seriously. “I enjoyed myself _very_ much, I sodding—I can’t even begin to explain it. It’s—you know what you said that day at the supermarket, about us being combustible?”

I nod, sliding closer to him.

“Well god, you were right,” he is whispering now, because I’m right in front his face, and I can’t stay away, I can’t imagine being away from him in this instant. The devotion is sudden, striking, and intimidating— _where the fuck did this come from?_ "I mean—I knew you were right, then, but now, here—this is what happens. That was—that was combustion."

I chew at my smile. “Do you think we’re going to kill each other?”

“If someone’s going to kill me, Lils—I want it to be you.”

 _Lils_. It’s like a gorgeous bell ringing somewhere in the distance. I close my eyes, listen to the echo of its sound. James kisses me this time, and I’m thankful—because I’m not sure I could move, even if I wanted to.


	9. Chapter 9

_Lily_

Ruth Evans has a startingly and unpardonable aptitude in attacking me when I am most unawares.

Like this morning, when I’m very much minding my own business, finishing off a piece of jam-and-butter toast, staring into the middle distance (surely not thinking of any recent sexual activity), when she tosses this over her shoulder as she washes off a mug: “You’ve been off spending so much time with James, honey, are the two of you dating?”

I choke immediately on the jam-and-butter toast. And then cough, violently, trying to swallow around the crumbs clogging my esophagus. I reach for a glass of water, swallowing manically. The second my airway is clean I splutter, “Mum! No!” The defense is aggressive, sure, but lacks clarity from the get-go. “We’re—we’re _friends_ , sure, but we’re, we’re not—” I am sputtering stupidly, and the pain of this inability to articulate is increased tenfold by the smile I see Mum hiding into the sink. “We’re not spending _that_ much time together, honestly, Mum, come off it.”

“Alright, love, no need for apoplexy. Just curious, is all.” Mum laughs—as if she hasn’t just ruined my morning toast—and switches off the tap. I clatter my breakfast dishes unceremoniously by the sink, determined to fly away and forget this encounter as quickly as possible.

“Curiosity is always killing cats, Mum, take some care!”

“Off to see James?” follows me as I stalk from the kitchen into the sitting room.

“Not answering!” I holler back before slamming the front door behind me with what I hope is a startling finality.

I close my eyes and take a deep, composing breath on the doorstep. When I open my eyes, I see my beautiful Diana perched down the way on our mailbox, letter clutched in her talons. I smile and walk to her, hoping the letter is from Dorcas. “Diana, you’re a love,” I stroke at her feathers with the backs of my fingers. She leans into the touch, chirping in appreciation.

_Lily,_

_Had to set that letter straight on fire, I was too affected. Enormously excited for you and J. Potter. If one of us was going to get laid this summer, and it couldn’t be me, then I’m glad it’s you._

_However—you left out a rather important detail (you know!!!)— & feel free to use wand-length as a means of comparison. Inquiring minds demand to know!_

_Cheers,_

_D_

_Dorcas Meadowes: Never Once For Subtly Or Tact._

“What is this, two birds for the price of one?”

I look up to find James approaching via bicycle. I narrow my eyes at him. “If I had something to throw at you, I would throw something at you.”

“What?” he’s skidding to a stop in front of me with a foolish grin. “I’m being so very complimentary yet this morning.”

“I will sic Diana on you,” I warn.

“Diana?” James turns his smile toward my faithful owl. “Diana looks far too much like a reasonable creature to attack an innocent bloke such as I.”

I fold up Dorcas’ letter and stick it in the back pocket of my shorts. “She’s fiercely loyal. She’ll do what I ask.”

As if to underscore the silliness of the conversation, Diana spreads her tawny wings and takes off from the mailbox.

James raises both eyebrows at me, as if expecting a formal concession. I will give him no such satisfaction. “If I whistle, she’ll come back straight away.”

To avoid whatever quip James is biting at, I swivel on my heel to retrieve my bike. Once I’m back, I kick off, leaving James to scramble and keep up.

“Where to?” he calls.

“Let’s bike all the way to London, my legs are dying for the stretch.”

Laughter behind me. I flick my sunglasses down over my eyes, grinning. The knot is retired until further notice. No room in this sunny day for anything resembling _everything else_.

“Would you settle for a scoop of Neapolitan?”

I glance sidelong at him. He looks blatantly carefree, jeans and tshirt James, long summer hair brushing at his temples, the long lines of his body in repose, on fine display in such a leisurely activity. He quirks his head at me. I must be staring. I’m a hopeless, useless excuse for a girl.

“Not a fan of Neapolitan? You can just get strawberry, if you like.”

I shake my head and tear my eyes away. “It’s ten in the morning, James Potter. We’re not getting any sort of ice cream.”

There’s an indignant sound from him as I pedal faster to pull ahead. “No ice cream? I won’t stand for it! Lily—Lily, wait _up!_ Let me make a case for ten-in-the-morning ice cream!”

I’m ages away from him now, ridiculous grin still on my face with only the sun as a witness.

***

_James_

“As tall as—? Moony, _taller_ than! Taller than!”

“No matter how wildly you’re gesticulating with those brute hands of yours, Black, the hyperbole still stands. _Just_ as tall as me. Not an inch taller.”

“Fucking hell, this is, _ludicrous_ , I saw the thing not a broom’s length from me, I think I would remember it being taller than a lad I know better my own left hand!”

“Left hand? Surely you’re not using the devil’s limb to describe how well you know me.”

“Oh certainly I’ve known you _better than my left hand_ , too, and don’t you bloody well try and deny that.”

“Wouldn’t deny it, but would rather like to forget it all together, if you would be so kind as to never bring it up again.”

“Boys—can we—I just, it’s hard to keep up, Sirius, I think your ears are smoking with the exertion here. Need a butterbeer? A tea? Sit down, will you? You’re making me nervous with those hands.”

Though it’s barely been a month since the Marauders reluctantly parted ways outside King’s Cross, I missed my friends dearly, like limbs from my own body. Having finally returned from the Lupin-sponsored tirade through the forests of Iceland, Sirius and Remus are at mine for the night to catch me up on their summer. Peter—to his constant and annual chagrin—is stuck with the immutable Aunt Tabitha until the precise moment that the Hogwarts’s Express arrives in its cloud of smoke on September 1st. Remus, in all his care and concern, has promised via owl to report the evening of reunion to our missing fourth head.

“Butterbeer, absolutely, thanks,” Sirius huffs, collapsing onto the sofa. “Say, where’s my darling Euphemia tonight?”

“Off to the theater, or the symphony? Something lofty in the city that I was pointedly not invited to,” I call from the kitchen. “Butterbeer, Moony?”

“Thanks, yeah,” I hear him yell. I grab three butterbeers and shuck the caps, taking a swig as I return to the living room and hand off the other two.

“Right, James, listen: regardless of Remus’ wrong opinion about the matter of height, these things were bloody enormous, and incredibly keen on me.” Sirius has been trying, for little over twenty minutes, to describe to me an encounter they had with a near-extinct breed of herding hawk that some relative of Mr. Lupin’s cousin’s neighbor’s so-and-so breeds in the countryside. Remus, with unbroken frustration, has chimed in often to clarify that no, indeed, the hawks were not at some point _hunting_ Sirius, and no, certainly they weren’t then attempting to _claim him as one of their own._ “If I weren’t so shit at Care of Magical Creatures, I would’ve been able to communicate with them. They had a real _fondness_ for me, Prongs, you should’ve seen the way they were circling me.”  
  
Remus rolls his eyes but swallows any retort with a mouthful of drink. “And how’ve you been?” he asks me, his eyes full of pointed wonder.

“Good,” I avoid his eyes. “I’m only at the shop a few times a week, so I’ve had lots of time to—you know—take bike rides.”

Sirius leans forward and considers me closely. “Bike rides, Potter? You’ve been taking lots of bike rides?”

“Yeah,” I say, slowly, and it’s not untrue. I’m only lying by omission. “Something wrong with that?”

“No, you just—” Sirius cocks his head to one side, really looking at me hard, silvery eyes squinting in suspicion. “Something different about you.”

I bristle. He knows me too well. He can tell that I’ve been stitched to the core with new happiness. But I can’t let on—because the second Sirius Black is privy to that information, it becomes real, and it becomes something He Will Not Let Go.

“Dunno what you’re on about,” I shrug, taking a long drink to avoid critical eyes. “Let’s do wizard’s chess.”

Remus snorts. “Dumb idea, Potter. You’ve no idea the practice we had in tents with Uncle Sean and his little book of secret tactics.”

“All right then, let’s have it.”

The night spirals downward from there. We accumulate a pile of empty beer bottles, and I discover that Remus wasn’t kidding about Uncle Sean and tent chess and a little book of secret tactics—he and Sirius kick my arse twice each in a game that has more than once ended in Sirius wanting to physically altercate with me because of how badly he was beat. When eventually I _do_ beat him, it's only because he’s one drink away from unconsciousness, and I sweep away the board before he can become indignant with his fists. Then Mum and Dad are back, tuxedoed and chiffoned from whatever London so-and-so, and drunk Sirius is hysterical with their arrival, and Remus and I clean up our bottles and go upstairs to fetch blankets and pillows for our sitting room overnight.

Remus asks me the second we’re out of earshot. “Well?”

“Lupin, I’m fucked.”

“Fucked how?” he’s knotted in concern when he finds me grinning like a lunatic. “Like bad fucked?”

“No, no _good_ fucked,” I laugh, pulling open a linen closet and hoisting down blankets into his arms. “She’s perfect. Moony—she’s—she’s _sleeping_ with me, and I—”

“Wait a jot,” Remus cuts me off, catching an avalanche of pillows as I shove them his way. “Sleeping with you?”

“Well, only the one time—and then a couple of half-times, if you will.”

“Wait—so, you’re together then?”

My excitement stunts, falls off. I shut the linen closet. “Not exactly, no. It’s complicated. We’ve haven’t really, er, talked about it in that way.” I ruffle a hand through my hair and lean against the door. “It’s just—like I said in the letter—I’m letting her lead the way, and proceed how she wants to. I know we’ll have to talk about it, eventually.” I shake my head. “But I’m bloody nervous to, because the second we start talking about _what_ it is—well, I don’t want her to run away. I’ve only just got her.”

Remus’ brow is knit in trepidation. “And—you’re fully on then, still? As you’ve, well, as you’ve been?”

I’m relieved at this question, because at least it’s an easy answer. “Yes, yes, I’m on as I’ve always been, and, really,” I shake my head. “I’m on _worse_. Spending time with her, away from school, away from prying eyes—it’s _worse_ now, because I feel as if I’ve been able to be myself around her, and she’s seen me for that and—well, there’s nothing else besides her, I’ve always known that,” I laugh, adding, “though _fuck_ did I try to ignore it."

“You’re telling me,” Remus rolls his eyes endearingly. “It feels abstract to me James, I gotta say, but I’m happy for you, I really am.”

“Thanks, mate,” I reach out to carry half the load of linen I’ve only now realized I’ve piled Remus down with. “And thanks for—you know, discretion on the Padfoot end. It’s just, you know how he’ll be. I can’t give him a straight answer on anything, and—he’ll just go mental.”

Remus shakes his head sparingly. “Don’t have to say it twice. I’m the one who’s just spent a month camping with him, yeah?” We laugh together now, and my affection for Remus and his steadfast feet-on-the-ground friendship grows inexorably. “So,” he shifts on his feet. Below us, a burst of jubilation from the sitting room. “Are you going to talk to her about it soon? School’s coming up.”

I stew over the question. It stands in blatant disrespect to all the careful ignoring I’ve been doing in my own head, avoiding thinking about how having that kind of conversation with her is eventually going to be necessary. “Well, I’m not sure how well it will go over if I burst out with, ‘by the way, Lily, I’m bloody well in love with you, if you couldn’t tell, and if you aren’t planning on dating me I am going to perish into a cloud of dust.’”

“Yeah, I wouldn’t—” Remus tempers his tone of voice, to be kind. “I wouldn’t go with that.” He reaches out to place a hand on my shoulder, eyes steady and kind. “It’ll be okay, James. I hate to say it, but for as long as I’ve known Lily, and you, well—she’s definitely smarter than you. She’s probably through all this through, and then some.”

From the bottom of the stairs, a voice of lesser reason: “Jamesssssie! _Moons_! Are you _kissing_ up there? It’s beddie time!”

With a collective eye roll, Remus and I shelve the Lily conversation, descending the stairs to take care of our dear and dearly wasted friend.

***

“Stare much, Evans?”

From her perch on the checkout counter, Lily continues to stare. “I’m not staring.”

“Then what do you call that thing you’re doing where your eyes follow me around the room?”

“...observing.”

“Well your ‘observing’ is hindering my progress here.”

“Well I’m sorry, but I offered to help, remember? And you said—and I quote—‘ _it’s my sodding job, I will sodding do it_!’”

_Terrible impression—but cute. Really, really cute._

I’ve been attempting to settle the shop for the better portion of a half-hour, sweeping up fallen leaves and petals, touching up displays, counting the drawer. The closing-up routine—which I’ve done at least a dozen times now—is complicated infinitely by Lily propped up, peering at me, especially while wearing such a pretty navy-blue buttoned-up dress.

“And now I’ve almost forgotten to clear out the tulips like Gertie’s asked,” I shake my head, returning the sweep to its home behind the counter. “Would you do some work, here?”

She grins and hops down from the counter. “At your service!”

I hand her two vases of tulips, and nod toward the back. “We’ll put them back there. Think she’s cordoning them off for a friend.”

“You make it sound like she’s running some underground business, selling flowers to muggles in low places.”

I shrug, setting down the tulips down on a spare table in the back room, and doing the same Lily’s. “Never know with that woman.”

Lily lingers near the work bench Gertie uses to make custom arrangements. She runs her hand over ribbons of varying lengths and textures, vases of myriad shapes and colors, little notecards meant for well-wishes or declarations of love. I am caught off guard by her, a sudden affection teeming in my chest.

She glances back at me, and there it is again—the staring. She shifts her body, leans back against the bench. One hand stretches out towards me, an invitation.

It’s so easy. To think about us as something more, something normal. To imagine a life for us beyond the summer—holding hands on the train to school, studying together in the library, taking strolls along the lake as the colors of autumn fall around us. It’s right there. It seems within reach.

But it isn’t—it’s meant to be hypothetical. And I’m selfish to even think about it. Irresponsible. In all of a second, the slip of imagination darkens me more than it lightens.

The change must transpire visibly. Lily drops her hand, frowns. “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing.”

But Lily is smart—smarter than me, as Remus so acutely pointed out. She sees right through “nothing.” “Something just flashed across your face, Potter, I saw it like a ghoul in the night.”

I smile slightly, stuff my hands in my pockets. I look down at the floor. My heartbeat is convulsive with fear, hope, sadness—a confusing tangle.

Lily is in front of me now, face etched with worry. “Are you—” she starts, then stops, then begins again. “Are you upset that we took things too far?”

I look at her, and see that she might genuinely believe I’m angry because of how quickly things have moved. “Have I given you that impression?”

She is surprised by my tone. “No, I’m—I’m sorry.”

I regret the bite in my voice immediately. “No, I’m sorry, fuck.” I rub a hand against my temple.

“Do you want me to go?” Her voice is soft.

The idea of her leaving is painful. Now, or—later. I cut my head to the side. “Never.”

Her eyes are the green of a forest after rain and I want to stand in that rain, in that forest, for the rest of my life. I could almost hate it, the way I would do anything senseless for her, the way I would risk my life for her—and all this stupid, old-world valor just from her standing in front of me with honest eyes?

The world-ending here used to just be about the fire. Now, it’s about the destruction that brings about the world ending. Am I just now realizing how large the world beyond is, how it isn't just composed of two teenagers, fooling around in the summertime?

It’s a hard feeling to confront—how desperately I’m in love with her.

How desperately I’m unsure she could ever feel the same for me.

But—for now—it’s enough to see her understand some part of it, some small bit of what wars inside of me—to feel her clasp my hand in hers, squeeze. It’s enough to cradle her cheek in my palm, kiss her soundly, without thinking—without knowing what will come.


	10. Chapter 10

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> T/W: anxiety & panic attacks

_Lily_

For the majority of my schooling years, James Potter inspired in me a violent distaste—one that often provoked blind rages with little justification or reasonable backing. As I got older, and learned that my rejection really wounded him, the vendetta became self-indulgent. Arrogance taught him he was the finest thing to walk Merlin’s green earth, and that everyone else agreed, so nothing gave me more satisfaction than my immunity to whatever charm he thought himself in possession of—I was conceited, too, in my own way.

_And if that girl could see me now._

She would find herself distinctly horrified upon realizing that not only would her future self let James Potter know her in several rather intimate ways—but that she’s currently at it again, pinned to his bed, legs spread, his lips between her thighs.

My head spins an orbit with the stars, unable to conjure one solid, sensible thought. It’s quite possible James’ hands on thighs have replaced gravity entirely. His mouth works slowly; he knows this is infuriating. I press my back firmly into the mattress. I grasp his hair in my fingers. The moaning is a gross betrayal—a wordless plea. James lifts his mouth to look at me. I scramble onto my elbows, stare back. His hair a fine mess, frizzy with the humidity of desire, nose dotted in sweat. He’s glasses-less. He holds my eyes, brings two fingers into his own mouth, wets them; eases them inside.

A rush of high-pitched air from my throat. I can’t hold myself up now—not when he returns to the scene of the crime with lips, teeth, tongue. There are too many assassins on site. I’m frantic with the disorderly sensations, the low-belly buzz amplifying to full-on birdsong, a shrill, stinging joy. My head rolls from one side to the other.

There is no unmoving now.

James does not relent. He pursues the course with admirable intensity, _uncalled for_ intensity, until my thighs rattle with the force of the pleasure; the moment of collapse gripping me like a painful, perfect light. Lungs gasp.

Fingers loosen on thighs. Celestial tongue lightens. I have a million kisses to give, but his mouth is so far away. I reach for him blindly, pulling at his head and shoulders until he climbs toward me. I take his lips before he has any chance to protest—and the way he holds me; sweetly, gently, like I’m worthy.

I break from him to breathe. I assume this lack of air is a side effect of the orgasm, its aftershocks roping my legs—but the breaths become shorter, lungs unable to keep up, and I realize something else is going on, something familiar—something unwelcome.

_Anxiety? Right here, right now?_

_You betcha, Evans._

The immediate panic about the panic makes the panic worse, immediately. My chest tightens. I try to swallow past it, desperate to manage the reaction before I embarrass myself, but the trying is rewarded only with less air and less ability to breathe, and my mind, in its disarray, thinks probably now is a good time to start crying a bit, a good time to run straight into some hole and hide until the Bad Feeling Goes Away.

I can’t let the tears slide off my nose, here, onto his chest, and I can’t let him know what’s going on, so I say, “erm, need a moment in the loo,” and hope he doesn’t hear the high-pitched desperation in my voice as I slide away, off the bed, hobbling away into the bathroom and shutting the door.

I sit on the ground with my back to the sink basin, wrap my arms around my knees and lean my forehead onto my legs. I attempt to focus on breathing. _In, out, in, out._ The tears are silent, stain my cheeks. I try to be quiet. I try to imagine I’m in a pool of cold water. I shut my eyes against the reality of my location, the reality of my situation.

I trace the cause: Something in James’ eyes, in the back of the flower shop. His leaning away from me. His noticing how scared I am to commit to anything.

 _His pushing me away_.

No matter the lack of reasonable evidence—no matter any evidence I have to the contrary (mouth on my cunt not _thirty bloody seconds ago_ )—the anxiety latches onto the idea like a mold to rotting fruit, burgeoning and festering till it turns into something ugly, till it looks like _him not wanting me_.

I’m disappointed in myself—furious with myself—for letting something so small and uneventful, so meaningless, flourish into this hungry, pleasure-eating weed, dragging me from such good feeling into such odd and breathless despair. Into a full-blown _panic attack,_ for fuckssake.

_Am I really so insecure?_

The worst part of it all—at the door, a quiet knock. “Lily? You okay?”

What does one say? _No, James, I’m not ‘okay,’ I’m having a panic attack because of my own inability to decide whether or not I should commit to you romantically—and in addition to that, I’m having said panic attack quite conveniently after you’ve just made me come with you stupid fucking magic tongue._

I try to say—“I’m fine”—but my voice is like a whisper cracked in half, and from the other side of the door, a pause, then—“I’m coming in, okay?”

I have no will or ability to stop him, and the door eases open, and James finds me locked in this position of panic. His face falls into something terrible. “ _Shit_ , Lils, what’s going on?” He folds to his knees next to me, looking as if he wants to reach out, but is afraid to without permission.

I can’t look him in the eyes. “Just having a wee panic attack.”

His eyes widen, slightly. “What can I do?”

This offer to help is so opposite the _James wanting to push me away_ feeling that has latched onto my mind—but it does not ease the anxiety, instead confusing it further, augmenting its effects. “Um,” I try to breathe deeply, try to work past the sob that wracks out of me, unsolicited. “Um, I don’t—you’re just—I can’t—”

James moves toward me now, prying my hands off of my face, my face out of the fortress of my knees, spreading the hair out of my eyes. “Lily, just breathe. It’s okay. Just breathe.”

He settles across from me; I try to use his eyes as anchors. I participate in his exercise: Breathe. _It’s okay_. One breath—warm hazel eyes—followed by two breaths. “That’s it,” he’s talking to me as if I’m a child learning to walk. I feel like a child, trying not to stumble. “Breathe, Lils.” My chest reverberates with the rocky effort. I rub my lips together, let the breath in through my nose, out through my mouth. I focus on his face—glasses-less—and his voice, low. “It’s alright, now. You’re going to be alright.”

The effect of his gentle affirmations is another reason to cry—but I check the urge. I breathe. And breathe. _In, out. In, out_. My lungs expand with new slowness, beginning to feel like normal lungs. I swallow past the rawness in my throat, and try to sit up straighter. James holds my calves, lightly, as if to center me. He leans away, giving me space.

“Um—” I start, awkward now that my breath has returned to a normal pattern. I try not to imagine how I look. “Could you maybe, er, get me some water?”

“Of course,” he says, quickly. “Stay right here, okay? I’ll be right back.”

He’s up and gone from the bathroom before I can respond. I squeeze my eyes shut and lean my head against the basin. _Absolutely brilliant, Evans, the mess you’ve gotten into now._

James returns instantly, it seems. Or else time is moving strangely. He hands me the glass of water and what looks like one of his shirts. “I thought you might be more comfortable with something on.”

I’ve really managed to forget the fact of my nakedness, and am immediately appreciative of the gesture. I smile weakly. “Thank you. I’ll just—I’ll be out in second.”

He looks at me for half a beat, clearly worried that if he closes the door I’ll descend once more into my previous state. “I’m okay. I’ll be right out.”

He nods a little bit, as if to assure himself this is true, then closes the door.

I drink the water down slowly, then stand up and find my frazzled reflection in the mirror. She looks—unwell. I twist my hair behind my head and wash my face with cold water for several seconds. I grab a towel and hold it against my face, breathe in deeply. _That feels better._

I shrug on the tshirt. It smells like James. _That feels much better_.

I return to his room and find him hung over the side of the bed, tense, as if he’s ready to leap up and catch me if I’m too weak to walk. I sit down next to him and feel his eyes on me, searching. He’s wearing his glasses again. I am warmed by his concern, his care, by the way he brought me down so effortlessly. “Thank you,” I whisper, grateful he’s not asking question like _why_ or _how_. “For that.”

He cuts his head to the side a bit, eyebrows contorting against the bridge of his nose. “I’m just glad you’re okay.” I lean my head on his shoulder and hear him sigh, an arm winding around my back. “What do you need?”

 _I need you._ “Like, fourteen hours of sleep.” I muse, only half kidding.

He laughs. “Okay, let’s nap.”

James removes his pants before climbing under the sheets, gesturing for me to join. I burrow into his chest. Legs crisscross legs. Palms soft on my back. I stare into the fabric of his shirt, fingers tracing small circles. “I’m sorry.” My voice is quiet; I almost hope he doesn’t hear me.

He does. “You have nothing to be sorry for.” His voice lost to the top of my head. He presses a kiss against my hair. “I’m here.”

I close my eyes, listen to the steady pulse of his heart behind its cage of ribs; let myself be lulled.

***

_James_

I survey the assortment of wines dotting the kitchen counter, eyebrow cocked. “Mum,” I say slowly. “We’re only staying two nights.”

Mum waves a dismissive hand. “If there’s one thing I’ve learned—never too much wine. It’s always ‘oh, I wish I’d brought more wine to the cottage!’” She’s cranking open the ancient wine basket, wand in hand to touch up its rusty expansion charms.

I roll my eyes and check the clock above the oven—almost five.

“Sweets,” Mum asks, tucking the last of the bottles into the basket. “Should I have made some breads? I could whip up a zucchini loaf in a jiff—”

“Mum, you’ve already made so much. We’ll be okay.”

She clips the basket closed and smiles. “My boy. So grown up.” She pats a loving hand to my cheek. “I’ll put the powder by the fireplace, whenever you’re ready. And James,” she looks at me meaningfully now. “Do be safe.”

“It’s perfectly safe, I’ve been there loads of times alone—”

“No, honey, I mean _be_ _safe_ ,” her eyes go wide.

“Oh, gods, Mum,” I groan, hiding my face in my hands. “ _Come on_.”

“No grandkids yet—but someday, yes, please! Finish school first.” She is waltzing from the room now, very pleased with herself.

I barely have a chance to recover from the mortification when there’s a knock at the front door. I grab the wine basket, then rush out, yelling. “I’ve got it!”

Mum’s nowhere to be seen, thankfully, when I open the door to find Lily on the stoop, overnight bag in hand. The first thing she says to me: “Is your dad mowing the lawn, or am I imagining things?”

I sigh heavily. _This fucking family_. “You’re not imagining things. He’s a lunatic.”

She smiles, somehow charmed by my lunatic father. I’m happy to see her looking so well, hair tied into a pragmatic braid, face open and bright. The memory of the last time we spent together is fresh in the back of my mind, and I’m on high alert for any recurrence. I’m desperate to ask her what brought on the sudden panic, but I want to be sensitive, and gentle with her. Things are already delicate—not a great time to ask about any correlation between oral sex (given) and panic attacks (had).

“Come on,” I grin, stepping aside. “We’ve got a nauseating appointment with the floo-network.”

***

The cottage in Holland-on-Sea is nestled snugly in a crook of water and land. The property technically belongs to Isla Potter, my Great-Great Aunt, who’s long since passed, but now it’s a bit of a passed-around heirloom. The families take turns keeping the place in order; this weekend fell to Dad, who grumbled, “I’ve almost hit it off with this new potion, I’m can’t just drop it and go to the sea in an instant.” When I asked Mum if I might go alone—well, with Lily—she just smiled and sparkled and said, “of course, sweets, won’t that be so nice?”

We arrive safely—albeit sooty—in the fireplace thanks to an uneventful travel-by-floo, setting our things in the sitting room before setting off to establish the state of cottage affairs. It’s a cozy dwelling, just two bedrooms and bathrooms, a sitting room, a kitchen. The décor is rather out-of-date—positively ancient, more like it. Great-Great Aunt Isla, despite not being born in or living during the Dark Ages, had a peculiar taste for medieval furnishings, boars heads, and ill-lit family portraits.

Lily immediately happens upon the most dreaded portrait in the collection: the one of my own family, taken when I was ten. It hangs in spare bedroom above an elegant cherrywood armoire. Mum and Dad look splendid and regal in their formal black robes—I look positively furious in mine, portrait-me scowling down at any unlucky viewer.

“I can tell you’re about to rag on me for this,” I say, before she has the chance to rag on me.

“I wasn’t going to say anything.” But she was—she’s smiling mischievously. “I think you look adorable.”

“I look abhorrent, alright, I know. I’d just gotten a broom, I didn’t want to sit in for a _portrait_ for Merlin’s sake.”

She diligently suppresses laughter. “One would never be able to tell.”

I roll my eyes and make to leave the room. “Hungry? I’m going to make the most excellent dinner.”

“Starved.”

The most excellent dinner happens to be just a pre-made shepherd's pie from Mum which I heat up very excellently in the oven. Lily is kind enough to hold her tongue about me very obviously not having made the meal; she just seems grateful I at least know how to pour a glass of wine. I suppress the obvious oddity—brilliance—of this being our first meal together, alone—and I certainly push away the idea that it’s very romantic, us in the dark-walled kitchen, at the cream-tableclothed table, with the three brass candleholders and their wax-dripping flames. I do not think about the reflection of this light in her eyes. I do not see the shadows dancing on her face. I do not think she looks perfectly lovely.

After we’ve cleared away the dishes, Lily asks to take a walk on the beach. We don sweaters; we leave the cottage; we descend the scrubby sand dunes.

Evening light lingers purple in the sky. I watch Lily close her eyes, breathe in deeply. I do the same, smell the sea brine in the strong breeze. She looks over at me, smiles. “I haven’t been to the ocean since I was little. I missed it.”

_Well—I never want to leave this place, if that’s how it makes her feel._

When the salty waves kiss our toes we turn and walk down the beach, toward the setting sun. “Do you come here a lot?” Lily asks, wrapping her creamy knit sweater closer to her body.

“Once or twice every summer. Sometimes the boys come for a weekend of very responsible behavior.”

I don’t see it—but I know this makes her smile. “The boys, huh?”

“Yeah,” I laugh a little. “Dunno. Feels self-congratulatory to say ‘The Marauders’ out loud—especially to you.”

“Is it because my primary focus, for many years, was getting you lot in as much trouble as you deserved?”

I glance over and find her, beautiful, in the fading summer light. I have to look away with my grin. “We deserved it _most_ of the time, I’ll give you that.”

“Most of the time?” Indignance. “ _Every_ time.”

“That’s interesting,” I muse. “Because I seem to recall an instance when _us lot_ took a hard fall for a certain prefect who was using illegal methods of time management to cram for OWLs.”

“Oh, should’ve _known_ you’d through that in my face!” Lily shoves at me playfully, and I almost stumble straight into the ocean.

“You’d be in Azkaban right now was it not for us!”

“ _Azkaban_? Are you mental?” She’s shoving me again, but she’s laughing, stumbling over into the surf, splashing water onto both of us. “I was in possession of that Time-Turner for _barely_ a month, okay? It’s not my fault Black found out and couldn’t keep his damn mouth shut, or that you thought it would be fit to go and fix the fucking Quidditch cup!”

“Fixing the Cup was not my idea at all, Lils,” I correct. “Give Pete some credit here.”

“Godamn Marauders,” she’s rolling her eyes furiously, stomping away from me, on down the beach. “Can’t let a single year go by without attempting to destroy the natural progression of things.”

I jostle to keep up. The sun is barely winking above the waterline now. The waves at our feet, plum-colored. After a beat, Lily glances back at me, eyes tempered kindly. “Though, I have to say, it was a nice of you, that, you know—that you never told McGonagall about my _acquiring_ the Time-Turner in the first place.”

I keep my smile close-lipped. “Anything for you.”

She’s looking at me still, like she’s got something else to say. I am bursting through my smile. Her long red hair moves wildly in the wind. She must know how hard it is for me not to reach out. She does the favor herself; hands at my collar, lips on mine.

A need—always there, just hidden well—materializes. I carve my hands to her hips and pull them against me. She nips at my bottom lip—I grin around her mouth—she claims my tongue, possessive—my hands slide down, into the pockets of her jeans. Our figures sway in the sand. She finds my eyes in the near-dark. Her hands reach under my sweater, warm on my back.

***

_Lily_

When we return to the cottage, James says he needs just a quick moment to owl his mum that we’re alright, or she will “go ballistic.”

“ _Reginald_ is here?”

“Why the tone?”

I’m laughing. “I’m sorry, it’s just—I’m only just now really thinking about how you named your owl _Reginald_.”

“Alright, have your fun, be mean to my owl,” he’s hardly injured, grinning. “I’ll be on in a second. Bedroom’s down that hall, just there.”

I retrieve my overnight bag and find the bedroom James pointed me toward, clearly the master suite. I kick off my shoes and admire the scene: Marble busts, high-backed wooden chairs and embroidered cushions, lacy curtains and throws, a stately four-poster bed swathed in plush, rose-colored bedding. In one corner, an opulent vanity with a three-way mirror. I place my bag onto the bed and move toward the vanity for a closer look. The edging of the mirror is inlaid with intricate scenes depicting mythically beautiful women, staring into hand-held golden mirrors while brushing luscious hair, sliding on slippers that look to be made of clouds, whispering secrets into one another’s ears with sparkling eyes. I stare at the figures, entranced, until I discover they have indeed been painted with a magical brush—one of the figures turns to wink at me over her shoulder, turns away to giggle. 

“Isla was a bit into the dramatics when it came to interior design,” comes James’ voice from behind. I look up in the mirror, see him enter the room and throw his own bag onto the bed.

“I barely even noticed the pureblood.”

James returns my sarcastic smile. He approaches and leans against the vanity to face me, pointing to a small silvery box. “Look in there.”

I open the box and find several dramatic, jeweled rings resting on a bed of green velvet. They all look very real, and very expensive. “Oh, my.”

“It’s a running joke which of the great-great nephews will get one first.”

“Not the nieces?”

“You’d think. Isla willed them down strictly as engagement rings.”

If I didn’t know any better, I’d say his eyes flick briefly to mine.

“And which one would you use?”

James is bemused. “What makes you think I already know?”

“Wild guess.”

He keeps my eyes steady for a second; then relents. “If you must know.” He picks up the box and eyes the rings closely. “Of course, I suppose it would depend on who was on the receiving end, and their taste,” he muses, picking up each ring till he finds the one he’s looking for. “But I’ve always liked this one.”

He hands the ring to me. It’s a small, clear gem, probably a diamond, inlaid in a pattern of delicately carved flowers. Simple—exquisite. For a stupid second, I think to slip it on, see it sparkle on my hand.

 _That_ impulse I kill on site.

“It’s beautiful,” I tell him honestly, returning the ring.

“Mum’s keen on this one,” he hands me one with a giant, ostentatious square-cute emerald flanked by two oval pearls.

“Oh, that looks heavy. Euphemia likes flashy?”

James nods. “It’s her only real concession to excess. Well—jewels, and wine.” He returns the emerald ring to the box, and the box to the vanity.

He looks back at me, gaze steady. His eyes are almost blank. But not quite—I know what’s back there, hiding. 

I stand from the vanity, turn from him. I’m not sure it’s yet dawned on me that I’m overnighting with James Potter as if it’s the most normal thing in the world. I don’t _feel_ as if it’s abnormal. So I won’t act like it is.

I slide my sweater up and over my head, fold it into a neat square, place it onto a lush magenta loveseat adjacent the bed. I turn back, find James watching with obvious amusement. “What?”

“Nothing.”

“I don’t want it to wrinkle.”

“Fair.”

It’s like I’m suddenly hot-wired for one thing and one thing only. I unbutton my blouse slowly, because his laughing eyes just won’t do. I shrug it off my shoulders. It falls to the ground.

Eyebrows arch—he says nothing. He does not move a centimeter.

The jeans come next; unbuttoned, unzipped, slipped from thighs, calves, ankles. Stepped out of. I don’t own any truly glamorous undergarments, but these are certainly the best of the lot: black, edged in lace.

James traces his eyes over me. His throat contracts, just slightly, an almost invisible reaction.

Since he’s not going to do anything about it—I return to the vanity’s edge, a breath from away from his leaning body. He looks up into my face.

“I know...” I begin; restart. “I know that last time we—um, that I got a bit panicked. But don’t let that deter you, okay?”

He takes my hands, gentle. “So long as you’ll tell me if it’s too much, if you want to stop.”

“Okay,” I agree, quiet, leaning in. My hands slip up his arms, round his shoulders.

He keeps my eyes. Shifts his hands up my back, a slow, traveling touch that slides beneath the strap of my bra, detaches it at a snail’s pace; the bra falls away, finds the floor. I’m close enough to his lips to feel his breath, hear it quicken as he follows in the wake of the discarded garment, fingers edging my sides until breasts fill his hands, heavy. I watch the languid rise and fall of his eyelashes, the color in his cheeks. Thumbs begin to stroke; the warmth I am filled with, swift and cutting. I barely have to move to take his lips like they belong to me. I melt, barely-clothed bits meeting the rough texture of sweater and jeans, such good friction. He catches my tongues and tastes, long, slow. An exasperated sound from the back of my throat. He gives no relief; one hand slips down my stomach and he’s pulled from my mouth as fingers find the in-between, roving the point of no return. No release; he cuts past the thin fabric, finds out exactly what he’s already done to me, my restless anticipation. He is swallowing hard, breathing out, “already?”

If I’m supposed to be embarrassed or ashamed, I am not. I bring my tongue to his neck-pulse, taste. I push my hips into his hand, contact like a pulse of fastlight; my cheek falls against his cheek.

“I want you.”

His eyes are dark as the plum-colored waves. Arms encircle me, and I’m lifted. He rises, eyes never leaving mine, and carries me to the bed.


	11. Chapter 11

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: Sorry for the long long wait—coincidentally, I was distracted by writing the sequel! Yikes! I think there will be just one more chapter after this one. Thanks for reading!

_James_

I wake to a pleasing heaviness at my back. My body reclaims conscious existence slowly. Eyes blink open, lungs expanding with first breath. I look down and find a tangle of fingers; Lily is flush against me, her arm crooked around to my chest, hand entwined with my own, nestled against my heartbeat. My smile is quiet. Sleepy, even breaths on my shoulder, thighs soft amongst mine. I breathe in, deeply; savor this feeling of peace. 

A scene of the previous night flashes through me without warning: Hips bearing down on mine, rush of a rising wave, high, breathy voice, “ _please_ ,” the crush of fingers on my arms, collarbones, the aggravation, the utter intolerance of my not listening to her every command, her every request—the equation solved laterally, because there was no agreeing on who would be where, my body sliding against hers sideways, like a magnet to another magnet; the frantic rake of her sounds, my sounds, our sounds, delicious feelings adding up and multiplying, the sweat and shine and struggle equating, in the end, to a serenity not yet found by any other two people.

My body awash in the memory of such reckless joy, I ease my shoulder down to the side, sliding gently onto my back, releasing her hand onto my chest softly, slowly, as not to wake her. I’ve failed—her fingers fidget, spreading out through chest hair, and she inhales for a long second. Her body shifts downward, chin tucked onto my shoulder, head lolling to the side, blinking toward me. Messy red hair obscures her eyes from view. “Who the hell are you?” she asks, squinting.

I might be tempted to believe she genuinely forgot who I am—I do look fairly different sans-glasses—if it weren’t for the smile in her voice. “I’m your weekend ticket, who are you?”

She groans softly, thumping face-first into the sheets, fingers curling on my chest, leg sliding down mine. The effects of her movements are involuntarily—but striking.

_I mean, of course I’m already randy. Why the fuck not?_

Lily slides off of me. I want to reach out, beg her to stay, but I don’t fancy pushing my luck. I watch her stretch out among the sheets, hands arching above her head, toes extending outward. I reach for my glasses on the bedside table—briefly remember last night, her saying “ _how the fuck do those stay on during all this”_ —and put them on. Morning Lily is someone I want to see clearly. I shift to my side, prop myself up via elbow, reassemble the sheets superstitiously to hide a growing—uncalled-for—hard-on.

Lily emerges from her coming-back-to-life, shares a timid smile. “Bit sore this morning.”

This is not good news for the hard-on. “Oh?”

She rubs her lips together, nods. “Good sore.”

“ _Good_ sore, huh.”

“Very good sore.” She’s slipped to her side, as has the sheet slipped, revealing a hip here, a breast there. She makes no move to re-cover.

For a second, staring. Her and I. I consider lying like this until I perish. Gravestone to read: _Cause of Death: Lily Evans Being Bold in the Morning._

She breaks the spell. “Are we going swimming today?”

“If you want to, sure.”

“Alright.”

She’s got a sparkle in her eye that I can’t place. “What’s the look, Evans?”

“Evans, mmm.”

“If you’re not Evans, then I’ve got the wrong girl.”

She laughs. “I have such a kiss for you—but I’ve got to use the loo, terribly.”

“Well, go on, then, if you must.” I fall onto my back.

I’m spared only a fleeting glance before she scoots down off the edge of the bed, shedding the sheet completely, pads off toward the bathroom. My eyes following foolishly. She pauses in the doorway, looks back. “Nice boner, Potter.”

 _Fucking hell_.

***

After mugs of coffee and flapjacks-from-the-box, we pack Mum’s endless picnic basket with sandwiches and nectarines and bottles of carbonated water. At Lily’s special request, I throw in a packet of saltwater taffy. This earns me a tongue-heavy kiss.

_Mark down saltwater taffy as Lily-specific aphrodisiac._

The sky is brilliant blue and cloudless as we hike down the beach. Thanks to the rather secluded corner of land on which the cottage is tucked, the coast, as far as the eye can see, is clear of beachgoers, besides us. “Busy day,” I call out as we walk through hot sand, towels and basket and tall striped umbrella in tow. “Dunno how we’ll find space.”

Lily shoots me a smile that says _dumb joke from dumb boy_ , which I can’t argue with one jot.

We settle far enough from the water to accommodate rising tide. Once the umbrella is pitched, towels spread out, Lily sheds a white tunic to reveal a bikini so small I’m forced by my special brand of 17-year-old-bloke immaturity to stare, blatantly—tipping my sunglasses down my nose to get a better look.

Lily is throwing her hair up into a ponytail when she notices. “What?” She glances down at her body, like she barely remembers what she put on. “Nothing you haven’t seen before.”

I raise my eyebrows, almost willing to argue that this I’ve _never_ seen before, the long lines of her legs and soft stomach and hips and tits barely contained by slim navy coverings. _Maddening woman, acting like she doesn’t know her appeal._

The staring is a permanent sentence. She shakes her head back and forth. “Are you coming?”

“Well, not _yet_ —”

“Fucking _hell_ —if I drown, that’s on you!” she’s exclaiming, walking backward for a second to make sure I see the bird she’s flipping me, then turning to walk toward the water—and _no I am not staring at how well-formed her arse looks, definitely not thinking exclusively about that_.

I jump to my feet, tear off my t-shirt and shorts, sprint off to meet up with her. She glances at me, sidelong. I’ve donned my most flattering swimsuit—and this is according to Remus, who, though insistent that I’m “a good-looking sort” would never sleep with me himself, given my “one-girl blind straightness.” His seal of approval gifted me otherwise nonexistent comfort in the pair of green briefs, which hit mid-thigh and leave little to the imagination.

“I can tell you’re waiting to be flattered.”

“So what if I am?”

“So get used to waiting, loser,” she says, but she’s smiling, and taking off into the water, shrieking at the sudden chill. I take just a millisecond, in the bright light of day, on this wide stretch of unpeopled horizon, to send out a beam of gratitude to whatever celestial forces aligned for her to be here, with me, on this day, laughing as she walks deeper and deeper into the waves.

Walking becomes near impossible as our feet sink deeper into the sand, heavy blue water beckoning us forward until we’re waist-deep, then neck-deep. Lily turns to me once she can float, backward, palms outstretched over the surface. “There’s not going to be sharks out here, right?”

“Loads of sharks.”

“Oh, fuck you,” she squeals, and digs a hand into the water, spraying my face and chest.

“Alright, now you’ve done it,” I warn, returning a splash of my own and speeding toward her—I’m too late, she’s screeched at the imminent attack, spinning round to dive straight into the blue-black depths. She emerges seconds later, not far from me, hair darkened, slicked back with the wet. She smiles with closed lips, swimming backward, holding my eyes.

It’s just her, and the whole ocean, and my irresponsible heart. Pounding.

I submerge myself briefly, returning to the surface with a gasp at the chill that clings like second skin. I remain only head-above-water, tread toward Lily. Against the dark backdrop her eyes are startingly green, brilliantly so. “Do you think swimming is the closest muggles get to flying?”

I consider. “Swimming _does_ sort of feel like flying, in terms of weightlessness, though it involves significantly more exertion.” I dip my head back into the water, look up to the cerulean sky. “I can’t imagine swimming for an entire three-hour match, that’d be brutal.”

“Did you know you loved flying, from the first instant?”

“Yeah,” I tug my head upward to smile at her. “One of the best feelings in the world.” _Second only to being with you._

“I’m so envious,” she admits. “I nearly fell right off during lessons, first year, and I’m afraid my desire to be the _best_ at everything didn’t help me in that instance, it just embarrassed me, badly.”

I try not to smile at the image of young Lily fumbling off a broom, appalled that her innate ability to excel at nearly everything didn’t apply to the physics of flying. “Wouldn’t have thought you’d give up so easily.”

Lily shakes her head, water flying with the movement. “See now, _that_ version of me you’ve got to rub out of your head,” she says, swimming to me, mussing up the top of my wet hair with her fingers. “I’m always failing at things—and giving up.”

A bright pang of fondness at my sternum. “Never too late to learn."

“Well, I’m not learning on principle, at this point, you see,” she has swum right in front of me; her chin bobs in and out of the water. “Can your feet touch the ground?”

I extend my toes downward, find sand, plant my feet flat. The water rises just to the top of my neck. “Yeah, can you?”

Lily strains briefly, the water flooding the line of her jaw. She looks up at me closely, assessing our height difference—negligible, really. I feel her underwater hands on my chest. I hope she can’t feel my betraying heartbeat. “Can you keep a secret?”

 _She has no idea._ “I can.”

She floats closer now, hands creeping up my shoulder blades. “I’ve been massively jealous of you for years.”

Now this—I was not expecting to hear. “Come again?”

“It’s true,” she laughs. “I wasn’t always pleased to attend every Quidditch game ever played, at least Gryffindor-wise, but Marls always dragged me, because of course we had to support Dorcas—and so I got to, I dunno,” she shrugs, the water around us rippling. “I got to watch you get better at it, and flourish, and it didn’t escape me, I guess—though I’m sure I would’ve denied it at the time, had anyone asked—that you were so alive out there, and played the game really, really well. And I was jealous. You seemed—you seem so happy up there.”

If I weren’t floating somewhere in the English Channel with Lily Evans’ hands attached to my torso, I may have thought I was floating in the substance of a different reality. The idea that at any point in the last six years Lily was _watching_ me, specifically watching me play Quidditch—is too much, overwhelming, an absolute shock to my ego. “You were—watching me?”

“Yeah, you dolt, like I said. Hard to look away, in any case, when you were determined to be the star.”

“Well—I did eventually learn the value of teamwork,” I muse. “By fifth year, anyway.” I can’t fathom that now I have to go on and live knowing that Lily Evans was observing my growth as a Quidditch player, noticing my unashamed love for and commitment to the game—as if there wasn’t enough about her already that unraveled me. _Un-fucking-fair._

A tiny wave brushes over us, and in sudden fear that Lily will be torn from me, I reach out for her hips. “Certainly, you’ll be captain this year, no?” she wonders, flush against my watery form. “Unless—Ansel? Suppose he’s a strong contender, too.”

“Lily—” I splutter, restart. “Are you—what’s this about you being up to date on Gryffindor team politics?”

Her lips quirk upward. “I told you. I’ve been paying attention.”

My head is shaking in amazement. “I’ve never been more attracted to you in my life.”

And I have to kiss her, I have to—and she lets out a sound of soft indignance, but then her mouth slides open, and I’m sunk. Well—floating, submerged. I could neck Lily mid-water for the rest of my life. Let my skin prune to nothing but its baser elements; let the fish nibble away at my ankles, elbows. Just to feel this sublime, irrational feeling.

Lily pulls her mouth away, hovers. Eyes rove my face. She hefts herself upward, using my shoulders as leverage, till she’s looking down from above; my hands slide down to her thighs, fingers spreading to support. Disrupted water floods around my neck. Her head eclipses the blinding sun.

For a painful, burning moment, I remember the uncertainty beneath the surface—but its washed clean away by her mouth, back with mine, and I’ve no choice but to surrender completely, maintain a willing ignorance; this is how I will save myself.

***

_Lily_

“Are you sure this is allowed?”

“Oh, this is unquestionably not allowed.”

“James!”

He either can’t hear me, or elects not to—either way, he doesn’t answer. He’s already halfway up the ancient, rusting staircase, the one that spirals up and out of sight for what seems like forever in a decommissioned lighthouse in the middle of nowhere England. I squint up at him, apprehension flooding my gut. He pauses, looks down from above.

“C’mon Evans, break a rule, just this once.”

I bite my lower lip, sighing. It’s hard to say no to him. I grab hold of the suspect-looking railing, will myself brave, and begin to climb.

After a long sunny swim and quick lunch, James and I returned to the cottage, showered—separately, despite any temptations otherwise—and redressed. He suggested trekking not a mile down the beach to see an abandoned lighthouse he claimed “belongs to the Potter family emotionally, though not legally."

The lighthouse—impossibly tall, especially when I stood right in front of it, looking up—juts out over the water precariously, crooked atop a cliff, its base overrun in weeds and wildflowers. James maneuvered this overgrowth till we happened upon a wooden hatch—clearly not the main entrance—held shut only by a rusted lock—which, turned out, was not latched shut at all. I gave him a pointed look as he broke-and-entered, to which he rolled his eyes, “don’t look at me like that, everybody does it,” and when I responded “you, Remus, Sirius, and Peter are not ‘ _everybody’_ ” he just rolled his eyes again and climbed through the wooden hatch.

The inside of the lighthouse is empty save the spiraling stairs, caches of the thick, sloping spiderwebs, and circular windows that glimpse out to dark water and faraway Holland-on-Sea. It feels like ages before we reach the top of the stairs—and by the time we do, I’m solidly out of breath, and more than a little uneasy about the matter of height. James is waiting through an arched doorway, on a small landing protected from freefall only by a thin metal railing. I hesitate at the top of the stairs, reassuring myself that if I die up here, my blood is on his hands.

“Alright?”

“Yes,” I say, slowly, stepping forward to join him at the railing. I do not look down. If I look down, I will fall over the edge, into the water, drown immediately. “Just a little...nervous.”

James offers me a hand, which I take, stepping to his side, gripping his upper arm with my other hand. I do not look down, past the railing.

“Are you afraid of heights?” he seems genuinely concerned, now _._ “I wouldn’t have brought you up here if I’d known that.”

“No, it’s okay,” I say, tightening my fingers on his arm. “It’s good to do things that scare you.”

The sun has started a downward slant, flirting with the horizon. The wind has picked up since the morning, and the waves are choppy, tumultuous, water churning green, blue, black.

I glance over to find James looking at me with a startingly honesty—and perhaps for the first time I’m completely aware of, I acknowledge the adoration in his eyes, which he makes no effort to hide. It’s possible, I suppose, that he’s incapable of hiding it.

I want badly to return it. I want badly to _let_ myself return it.

My emotions—roiling, unkempt—are bottled in as if by a wine cork, and there’s no easy way to break the news to myself: _I have to uncork_. I have to let go. I don’t know how, I don’t know when—but I have to. I’m being unreasonable, selfish. James has feelings for me. I don’t know how deep the feelings are, but I have a suspicion—and the idea of exploiting further someone with such genuine intentions, such an open heart—it hurts me just to think of.

“We’ll have to talk about it, you know,” I hold his eyes. “School’s soon.”

“I know,” he whispers, and there’s a flash of pain in his eyes so brief that I nearly miss it.

I want to try. I want to try and be better. But the idea of it is terrifying—I’m inexperienced. I’m new to this depth. “I’m sorry.” I look back out at the water, wishing I was braver, wishing I could just jump over the edge with his hand in mine, take whatever comes. But I’m cowardly. I just cling to him, selfish still.

“You don’t need to be.” He presses a kiss against the side of my head. “It’s okay.”

Over the horizon, a small boat, bobbing. It looks miniature. But that's just perspective. I wish I was on that boat, bound for deeper waters. Away from the complications of my nervous heartbeat, all my disorderly lust—the beautiful boy by my side.

***

_James_

I should be unhappy.

I should be unhappy that she’s brought attention to The Need to Talk. The Need to Discuss something I don’t to discuss, soon, or ever.

But I can’t bring myself to be unhappy. Not with her skipping along in front of me, hands twisted behind her back, her ponytail flipping back and forth when she whips around to look at me, smile. Its twilight, or about to be, the sky soaked in purple blue, wrapping us up in its dreamy last light. I stare down at her white sneakers; my hands stuffed in my pockets. 

_You love her bad, Potter._

Rocks kick up with each step down the ill-paved road back to the cottage. “You’re so contemplative,” it’s Lily, sidling up to me. “Penny for your contemplation?”

“Penny?”

She rolls her eyes. “Knut, then.”

I swivel around, walk backward, look at her. “I’m contemplating you, and you exclusively.”

I’ve earned a kiss on the lips. Over too soon. She has burning eyes, even in the dark. “It’s so frustrating.”

“Hm?”

“I always want you,” she’s crinkling her fingers in the front of my shirt, her breath hot on my lips. “It’s just not proper to be this randy, this quickly, and on an abandoned road, to boot.”

It’s not proper of me to groan out loud on an abandoned road, either. It’s not proper to feel her words through every part of me, electric—or tangle our lips in the twilight. “You can’t go around saying things like that to a bloke,” I murmur around her mouth. “He’ll start to get randy himself.”

She is aggravated, with a whine, with a tongue, with her body on mine like it never left—and I can’t be unhappy, not like this. Her hand between my legs. “You—” she won’t let me speak. She’s ruthless. Her legs parting over my thigh; grinding. “ _Lils_ ,” I choke, find refuge in her neck, sweet-smelling hair.

“I’m sorry,” she’s apologizing but she’s not sorry, she’s slipped her hand down my waistline, past my shorts, finding my cock, _oh gods_ her touch, her tenacity. “It’s all your _fault_ , anyway,” she’s got my tongue with her teeth—tugs, lets go, pushes herself over my thigh, and it’s all I can do not to fall over, in the road, in the twilight, coated in blue light. I do not want to come on this dark road.

I step back from her suddenly, leave her wide-eyed, floundering. “Oh—”

“C’mon,” I take her hand from my pants, tug her along.

She giggles—and I can’t even fathom that Lily Evans is _giggling_ , so I just keep walking, gripping her fingers, the cottage glowing dimly in the distance, just within reach. “No laughing,” I say, laughing.

“I’m going to jog, do you want to jog?”

She’s already running off, like some sort of shooting star. I watch her blurry leaving. I smile. Jog after her.

***

_Lily_

He catches up to me in the sitting room, or the kitchen, or some corridor—all that matters is hands on me, all over me. No thinking; just this.

He fixes me to the wall and takes my mouth as his own. There is so little time. Or it just feels like that, me yanking his thigh between mine for friction that was _oh so good_ on the dark road, and _oh yes still good_ here, now _._ My sounds mimicking the way I want the pleasure: fast, unyielding. No other way to sound. I brace myself with one hand in his dark wild locks, one hand on the hard swell in his pants—he shoves up my shirt, palms rounding my breasts, elicits a gasp when he presses thumbs to nipples—they harden for him, eager. Our embrace like the waves we knew, earlier—unrelenting, but unlike that cold water, we’re warm, then warmer. “Do you—” this I how I tell him, my fractioned-off breath, his hardness tucked into my hand. I press. “What do you want?”

Maybe I’ve never asked him, explicitly, what he wants. His breathing hard at my chin. “You.”

“No,” I urge, palm pushing again. Deep inhale. Thighs squeeze. Good pressure, frustrating, demanding more, unsatisfied. “What do you _want_?”

He withdraws. _Have I scared him?_ No—he is wrestling my shirt off, tossing it. Yanking down my shorts—kissing me, hard, his voice low, gruff; “I want you to touch me.”

I am frantic at his buttons and zipper. His hands shift, anchoring to the wall behind as I slip my fingers around his bare length, till he fills my hands, fills my ear with breathy appreciation, and now he’s gone and made me want to suck his cock, watch his legs tremble with the exertion—so I slide down the wall, to my knees, eyes on his as I jerk down shorts, underwear; feet kick those backward, out of mind. Eyes still—he is panting, open-mouthed.

I take him back in my hand, stroke, stroke again, stroke with pressure, squeeze. He’s fighting to keep his eyes open, I can tell. One hand on his cock, one sliding up his thigh, fingers digging in. Keeping his eyes, my mouth takes him in, tastes the tip of him down to the base of him. An unhappy throat is worth the strangled sound he makes; my fingers scrape at his hip; I take him back in, carelessly, slant, his wetness slipping along my fingers as they slide to catch up with my lips. A hand at the back of my head before I’ve even had a chance to get started, fingers entwining my locks, tugging upward.

I release him with a sloppy sound. Both hands on my head now, urging me upright—and when I’m up he’s got a tongue he wants to jam in my mouth, “never met a bloke so conflicted about blowjobs;" he groans away from me, hands sliding to grip my ass—“it’s not being _conflicted_ , just don’t wanna come in your pretty mouth,” and _Merlin’s left tit_ do I like the sound of _pretty mouth_ coming from his pretty mouth.

Lips on breasts through my bra, messy. I’m short of breath, struggling to tug excess clothing away so I can have him _now_ , “will you get this—” I breathe, he helps with my shorts, and looks up at me once they’re gone and I round his face with my hands and this pause—dangerous—feels like something important, something heavy—but I let it pass, I can’t process anything except the need for him.

_For now, enough. Everything else—can wait._

To be fucked against a wall by James Potter; the sensation—full—the sound—skin on skin, unembarrassed—the smell—heat and sweat, sticking from him to me, shared exertion, energy like restless seawater. My forehead tipped to his, my mouth rounding an eternal _please_ , and when it’s too fast and too deep but I need him faster and deeper still, he hikes me up so thighs can wrap his hips—and I strangle on the pressure until I’m back in a familiar strata of bright light—his breath and whines feeling distant and too close all at once, my voice gone from my throat in higher frequencies, the pulse between us no better or worse than a dying star that throws off its life without thought, without fear.

And after it all, like slowing through a river, his lips gentle on my cheek and lips. “Fucking hell,” he murmurs, resting me against the wall, heavy breaths warming my neck.

A plucking rib-hidden impulse to say something like _I think I might love you_.

I run my hands up his sticky back, bring him closer. Close my eyes against his soft hair. Feel myself swallow the words.


	12. Chapter 12

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Apologies for the long wait. Next time we meet, it’ll be in the sequel! 
> 
> Disclaimer: Used some lyrics that don’t belong to me from the HAIM song, “Summer Girl”

_James_

I walk Lily home late Monday morning. We’re both tired. The cottage always makes for lethargic returns. At the front door, she turns and says, “thanks, James, for everything.”

“Of course.”

And she looks at me, as she’s always looked at me, with a mixture of surprise, affection, coolness. Her everyday face is hard to read. Her desirous face—well, that’s a different story.

She steps forward, presses her lips to my cheek, hand touching my arm. When she leans away, she’s looking at me differently. There are three small freckles on one side of her nose that I’ve never noticed before. “Bye, now.”

I stand outside the door for a second, after she’s gone in. I rock forward on my toes, back onto my heels; the day is going to be hot. Humidity already sticks to the back of my neck.

***

_Lily_

I. _You're there when I close my eyes, so hard to reach_

It begins once I’m back from Holland-on-Sea. Two heady, sparring emotions: Peace and apprehension.

The peace, self-explanatory—airy, pleasing, bright. Him holding me in the water; that tender, salty kiss. I did feel love, then, or something like it. _Why this glass panel between me and what I want to feel, fully?_

The apprehension: Heavier and unbearable. Adds a shadow to every good thing. The _everything else_. 

I sit on the stoop with tea and watch the sky leak away in sunset. Mum pokes her head out the door asks if I’m alright with roast for supper. I say, “okay, sure, Mum.”

***

Dad, surprisingly, is the one who notices. We’re tucked in the garden next morning, reading. “Pleasant weekend?” he asks, not looking up from his book.

“Mmhm, yeah.”

“Seem—troubled. Or, just, wrapped up.”

I put my book down on my lap and watch a bee buzz through the flowers, land on one, hover there, drinking. Such a useful creature. So self-assured in its own purpose. “Do you ever have a feeling that is so tangled up in itself, that you just, sort of, detach from it?”

Dad considers me over a pair of reading spectacles. “I think I do know what you mean.” He smiles. “I think I rather feel that way about your dear sister’s fiancé.”

I laugh. Certainly, we all feel that way about the dreaded Vernon.

“It’s alright to take time with a feeling, dear,” Dad says, turning a page of his book, straightening the spectacles on his nose. “Somethings aren’t meant to be decided on a whim.”

Though he means well, he hasn’t made me feel better. If anything, the feeling complicates further—tangled worse, like a delicate necklace chain. Sometimes you need a special tool to untangle that small a knot. The thinnest gold tangles the worst.

***

I dream I’m floating face-up in a pool of black water. Wearing a nightgown that molds to my wet figure. A voice, far from my water-garbled ears: “There’s a dead girl in our pool!” I’m staring up at a starry sky. The stars blink orange, silver, pink. No yellow stars. “Dear, that’s the neighbor girl. She’s just swimming.” Another voice, farther away: “No. You’re both wrong. That’s my best friend.”

A splash in the dark pool—and I plunge downward, immersed. In the slow-moving underwater: it’s James, swimming toward me. He’s hardly moving; body tinged blue-green. He’s not wearing his glasses. Can he see anything? Does the poolwater sting his eyes? I try to call out, but I swallow too much water, lungs filling, and now I’m sinking to the bottom, heavy. He’s stretching out his hand, but I can’t reach him. He’s too far from me.

II. _Your smiles turn into crying, it's the same release_

The pain comes slowly at first—but once I’ve acknowledged it, it accelerates, an invasive weed.

For days: I wallow in it. Let it experience me. I barely leave my room. I get an owl from James, then another, then another. I leave them on my windowsill, unopened.

One way I try to rid myself of it: Remember the pleasure.

I lay in bed and lock the door and close my eyes and think of him—arms, lips, legs, cock, neck, hair, chest, eyes. I think of him until I’m pulsing—try to touch the need away. Moan; remember him moaning.

Remember watching his face contract and expand in pleasure, in wanting. I remember his strong lines going soft, breath leaving lungs like waves. Small birthmark on his knee. Taking my tongue across his stomach; pressing palms to his thighs. Good pressure. Making him spasm.

I close my eyes and see only the memory of him. As if he has no real face.

When my body slopes its heady desire, carves me a small piece of what he made me feel; I reach only a place of emptiness. I bite sobs into the back of my hand. _Is this what I want?_

A fear: I’ve already lost him. A greater fear: He was never mine to lose.

III. _And you always know, and you always know_

From the cool, blue darkness of my bedroom, a door-knock—“Lilypad? James is here, asking for you—you alright, love?”

I’m flat on my bed, on top of the sheets. I close my eyes. Bring a hand against my forehead. I’m an immense, blithering coward. I have no desire to face what I have to face. It’s been a week.

But of its own accord, my voice: “I’ll be down in a second.”

“Alright, sweet.”

_There’s no time. There’s so little time._

He’s waiting, hands in pockets, in a downstairs hall. To see him is only a reminder. I offer a smile, or a semblance of a smile. “Let’s go out here,” I say, walking past him, out the back door, into the garden.

We walk side by side, close enough to touch. I want to kiss him, deep, long—but that would be unfair, and I’ve the distinct feeling that I’m not allowed to. I don’t know if it would be the last.

Mum’s garden is in full summer bloom. Swathes of wildflowers, tall vines climbing wooden posts, laden with tomatoes, the frothy tops of carrots.

“How’ve you been?”

A week is the longest we’ve gone without seeing one another since June. There’s an edge to his voice—I can tell he’s trying to comport it into something even, off-hand, but he’s hurt, already, and that’s my fault.

“Fine,” I glance at him. He glances back.

_I miss you. I don’t know how to have you._

“You’re—not responding to my owls.”

“No,” I have to look away. “I—I’ve been in a bit of a, er, gloomy mood.”

The sun cuts down between leaves. Stripes of it. “Anything I can do to help?”

I close my eyes against this earnestness, his kindness. It won’t help. “I don’t think so.”

“Is it because of me?”

My arms are wrapped around my stomach. I’m trying, I suppose, to brace myself for impact. “Not really.” I look down at my bare toes in the grass. “I think it’s because of me.”

“It’s—” he’s slightly frustrated. “It’s just a bit of a turn-around, you know? From last weekend, and all, and I—” he sighs. Ruffles a hand through messy hair. “Can we talk about it, at least?”

He’s such a good person. He’s giving me more than I deserve. _Given_ me more than I deserve. “It’s just a real, er, complicated thing, for me.”

“Complicated thing?”

“You and me.” I spare another quick glance—he’s etched in pain to come. _I don’t know if I can do this._

For a beat, his closed eyes. “How so?”

I curl my toes in the grass. Breathe deeply. Clouds roll out overhead, torn clean through my blue sky. “It just feels...it feels unsteady—dangerous. I would—” I lick my lips. “I would rather destabilize a bomb then be complicit in its explosion.”

James laughs. I look up, surprised. He’s looking at me incredulously. “Destabilizing—? _Fuck_. You’ve not talked to me in a week, and now you’re talking in metaphors?”

I shake my head, tighten my arms at my stomach. “I’m just trying to explain—”

“Explain _what_ , exactly?” he interrupts, and now his eyes are lit up, stance offensive. “That you’ve—you’ve grown tired of me? You don’t want anyone else to know about this? You’ve gotten all you’ve wanted from me?”

“That’s—” I swallow uneasily. “I never said any of that, you’re projecting.”

“Well, I’ve no choice than to project, have I? I only have my guesses, because you’re standing there like you’ve never seen me before in your life, like we’ve never—” he cuts himself off, looks away. A breath. “Like you’d be fine if you never saw me again.”

It hits me in the stomach. _I don’t know how to leave this, unscathed_. _I have no protection._ “That’s not true.”

“Then feel free to tell me what _is_ true, because from where I stand you’ve spent a whole summer acting like you didn’t care about all this _explosion_ nonsense, and now you’re telling me it’s too _complicated_?” he laughs again, callously. “It’s just— _of course_ it’s complicated, Lily! That’s what happens when—when you spend so much time with someone, and get so close to someone—it’s _normal_ , it’s just what happens, yeah? Feelings get intense, and tangled, things get heated, but it’s just growth, it’s not a bad thing to feel intensely, and explosively, and—fuck all, that’s the _definition_ of falling in love!”

I see myself hear this from afar. Like I’m not party to my own body, my own self. “In love?”

I’ve misstepped, without even intending to step—and I watch as his face falls, demeanor deflating. His chest heaves, eyes blinking, rapidly. “Well,” he breathes, voice agonizingly low. “I suppose, then, the feeling isn’t mutual.”

This is no scene to play out in a backyard garden; a place too lovely for paralysis. My stupid numb body. Incapable. Unable to move or speak or say _wait wait wait don’t leave_.

James swaying, slightly, where he stands. Shakes his head. He says it quickly. “If it’s what you want, I’ll leave you alone.”

And then he’s leaving me alone, good on his word, and there’s a moment I could stop him, a moment I could reverse it all—but it’s gone before I even consider it, and the space where he stood is just grass.

***

Later—and not sure when—the house is dark; I’m sitting on the stairs. It knocks into me. The hollow gasp from my lungs, the ache starting in my head, then my cheeks, then my chest, then my heart. I am head-down-between-knees, sobbing.

_I don’t know. I don’t know. I don’t know._

***

_James_

A soft knock. “James?” Dad. “Hogwarts mail.”

Pause.

I can’t have him opening the door and seeing me on the floor, eating an apple, not tasting the apple, barley chewing, aching jaw; staring at my bedroom ceiling. Feeling close to nothing, but not quite nothing. A little pulse of something: Her folded arms, her furrowed brow, her avoiding my eyes. The leaving. The walk home. The empty.

Absence.

“I’ll just put it here, under the door,” his uneasy voice. Tiptoeing. “Feels heavy.”

Envelope slides under the door. Pause. “Anything you need?”

Close my eyes. “Just fine, Dad. Thanks.”

Footsteps retreat. I finish the apple, let the core roll out of my fingers, onto the floor. Long, deep breath. Sit up, reach for the envelope. The letter unfurls; something heavy falls into my lap. I touch the badge with slow fingers.

_Fucking hell_. _Like I need this, now._

It only follows that one unimaginable thing would be followed by another. I’ve no sense of how I’ll make it to the station, come next Saturday.

_Should I have fought? Should I have said—no, I don’t accept this? I don’t believe you, I don’t believe you don’t love me?_

I wonder, briefly, the logistics of dropping out of Hogwarts when you’re six years in. I could leave, apparate somewhere far away, pitch a tent, trace the stars. Be miserable, alone.

But it won’t do. I’ve got dependents. Some of whom I owe a letter.

Stand up from the ground; bones protest. Wobble on the spot. Stretch out, well. Tired. I toss the letter and badge onto my bed, move to find a sheet of parchment in my desk. Sit in the chair, dip a quill in ink. Sigh. Begin to write:

_Padfoot—_

_I don’t know where to begin. Something’s happened._


End file.
